Kingdoms of Kalamar: The Death of Kings

… And just like that, the pain was gone, swallowed in blinding, deafening darkness.

Flynn Flashwood awoke with a start, eyes open wide to see not oblivion, but the sunshine. A sun more welcoming and warming than any he’d ever experienced. Far away from the bitter, violating cold of that terrible place, he knew. One moment ago, Flynn had been in that alien contraption, feeling as if his very blood had been replaced with bubbling acids, an agony unlike any he’d experienced sucking the life from his body. Then suddenly he was here, lying back in the sand, a glass of wine in his hand, the sound of the ocean lapping entrancingly just a few hundred yards away.

“Beautiful day, is it not?”

Flynn looked up, instinctively squinting as his eyes turned toward the sun… except the sun did not dazzle or obscure in any way. It hung in the sky, brightening the world and burning nothing, not too bright at all. Not too hot. Nothing here was too much of anything. It was all perfect.

The man stood before Flynn grinned widely, a neatly trimmed beard framing a pearly white set of too-perfect teeth. A mocking eyebrow was raised below a mop of curly black hair. On either side of the man, two half-elf women were giggling, and the man’s arms were draped across their naked shoulders.

“Mercy… you bastard.”

Flynn got to his feet to greet his uncle, the brigand king, the liar and the cheat. B’Sar “Mercy” Ebonflowerwood, the “great” progenitor of Zoa’s hundred bastards, with two women on each arm and a drink in each hand, unmistakable in his decadence. Flynn wanted to hate that lying, cheating, murderous piece of shit. But this place felt like home, and Mercy… felt like family.

“Guilty as charged, Mr. Flashwood. Of course, you know all about that. You know who I am. More than my children ever did.”

“What… is this place?”

“It’s death, my boy. This is where all my worthy bastards come when Kalamar’s finally had enough of their shit. As you can see… it’s been a long time since we’ve had a visitor. Apparently not too many of you ever quite made the grade.”

Flynn looked around as he sipped his wine – a wine not too sweet, and not too dry – and noted the distinct lack of any others on this seemingly endless beach.

“Looks that way. S’what happens when you let Risk take the rudder for you. Roll the dice one too many times, and you soon find yourself in debt. The house always wins, Flynn. It always wins in the end.”

“I have so many things to ask, uncle… or great uncle… or… actually, first question – exactly HOW are we related, anyway?”

“Well, interesting story there. The Flashwoods, you see…”

A tearing sound cut the man off before he could continue, as the very fabric of this place pulled itself apart. Mercy smiled smugly.

“Well well, maybe you’ve got a few more chips on the table than I thought, boy.”

Flynn was about to ask what Mercy had meant, but felt the pull in his gut, and simply knew what it meant. He could feel hands reaching for him, a voice calling out. The chill winds and the pain and the suffering… Brand telling Flynn to come back. Flashwood looked toward his uncle… or great uncle… and the brigand had no drinks in his hand, no women on his arms. He was smirking, arms folded.

“You can always stay, you know,” he said. “Nobody ever has to go back. Just tell your friends you’d rather say goodbye to the struggle, the loss, the agony. Stay here. Drink. Eat. Fuck. Conjure two-bit good-for-nothing market sellers and let a crossbow bolt off in their stupid fucking face day after day after day.”

Flynn sighed.

“I can’t,” the young bard replied. “I have to go back.”

“You won’t abandon your friends, eh? Or is it that the fate of the world is just too important to ignore?”

“No… the way I died was really, really fucking stupid. And I can’t let Brand look better than me.”

Mercy laughed.

“Spoken like my true nephew… or was it great nephew? I guess we’ll have to wait for the answer. Shall I, uh, hold your drink for you?”

Flynn handed his wine glass over to Mercy, who took it and nodded in respect at his young ancestor.

“Don’t you go drinking that now,” Flynn warned. “I’m coming back for it.”

I couldn’t see my hands anymore. There was so much blood it seemed impossible. Blood on the floor, the ceiling, in my hair. My hands looked like something out of a dream. Covered in blood and viscera. I was holding my friends esophagus in my left hand when it hit me. We made a mistake. Well, it wasn’t us, so much as the “doctor” that got to work on Odom before us. It seemed easy enough. Heal the wounds he had taken in this place so we could be on our way. The problem we didn’t see with that, was how this “doctor” viewed us.

Im getting ahead of myself. Let me start with a little about the half-orc. Odom is a man with a heart too big for his chest. He sees the best in people, and will always help someone if they need it. He sees the world through this lens, and because of that, he expects others are the same. He expects that when a doctor tells him to lie back and take this shot, that he is well on his way to being healed. What he could have never expected is that this doctor did not see a person that was whole and only needed basic medical attention. The good doctor saw a very sick thing lying on his table. A thing that had all the wrong parts in all the wrong places. So he went about doing what he “had” to do. Removing all the organs in this sick man.

I have no problem saying when im wrong, and on that day I was wrong! I should have listened to Diogenes when he said that Odom would die. I should have listened when he said something was wrong, and I should have listened when he told me to stop helping that doctor. I didn’t, and thought that at some point this doctor would start putting things back where they were supposed to go. That didn’t happen. Thank the Magic Maker for my weird nature loving comrade! Diogenes had the idea to regenerate Odom. He casts the spell, and had his plant clothes (yes, clothes made of living plants) protect the prone half-orc as best they could while the Druid worked his magic. None of this deterred the doctor as he kept pulling things out. One by one he worked his way through Odom’s most vital bits and tossed them out like they were trash. By the time he started separating my friends spinal column, I knew that it was time to stop.

Almost on cue, Flynn had the same epiphany. Before I knew it, a cage of pure magic enveloped that strange doctor. Flynn layed into his lute, and a chord struck the air like a thundercrack. If you have never found yourself lucky enough to be in the company of a true Bard, such as Mr. Flashwood, then you are truly missing out on one of the greatest treasures in life. When he struck that chord, it sounded like the sweetest thing my ears had ever heard. The note held strong for a heartbeat and reverberated through the chamber, and in response the world moved. Energy crackled from the very sound itself, as Flynn directed it with his song. Dazzling lights coalesced into something solid from the very sound itself. A cage made of pure energy enveloped the strange doctor thing, and pinned it to the ceiling. Did I mention that he was hanging from the ceiling from some contraption? Yeah, hanging from the fucking ceiling like something out of a nightmare. So the cage goes up, and Flynn starts shouting at me. I glanced over at the assistant, and put a hold on her, just in case. No use slaughtering people just trying to do their job, no matter how misguided the attempt may seem.

In my life I have but a couple of things to truly be proud of. The first I will keep to myself, but the second came just seconds after the doctor got caged. There we were, standing in a room with our friend laid out before us like he was being field dressed. Diogenes’ magic was keeping him alive, but only by a very slim thread, and he was bleeding more than I thought a body was capable of bleeding.

As a cleric, we are allowed to follow some of our own pursuits of knowledge. We all get the general lessons, but we also get to choose some of the things we want to learn outside of the basics. I chose to learn the skills of the artisan. I also chose medicine, and thank the Riftmaster for that! As Odom lay there bleeding, I couldn’t just stand there and watch. I did what anyone in my position, with my knowledge would. I rolled up my sleeves, sent up a prayer, and started putting things back where they belong.

To my surprise, Flynn jumped in. What we did together that day was nothing short of pure magic. Don’t ever tell him I said this, for he would have no choice but to let it go to his head, but that man became my hero in that tiny little room, operating on a friend who deserved better. Before I could ask, Flynn had the tool ready. Before I could even think about what came next, Flynn was there handing me the implement he thought would work best. He pulled bones out of the way and went elbow deep with me into Odom to put some of the more vital pieces back. When I got confused, or nervous, he was there. The words he said to me that day will stay with me forever, and I will not share them, but I will share their effect. He inspired me in a way I never thought was possible. Flynn is a man among men, and I hope to one day show him what his ever present companionship has meant to me. One day when he isn’t as apt to sing a song about how it was Flynn Flashwood all by himself that changed the world, or worse still a song about a big Cleric prostrating himself to a lowly Half-Elf.

Until then, I will continue to write my thoughts in this journal. Maybe one day, when the world is back to being more simple, these writings will serve as a history, or primer, or who knows. Maybe they will be collected and stored, or lost in some old library under a temple in Bet Kalamar. Whatever the final destination, I would be pleased to let the world know how close it came to being undone. I would let them see what four men and an Idea could do. I would let them see a holy man, and his friends, risk everything they ever had to keep the world from burning.

Nadirn. Krinn. Winston. Vox. Occam. Mercy. The combined personal experiences of six men swirled and screamed in his head, each vying for attention, each desperate to show more horrors and express more rage. The rage. So much anger, all thrashing and clawing at Flynn’s mind. The bard sat cross-legged on the basement floor, nothing but cold and silence, while in his head a burning storm of shrieking hot fury assaulted his every waking thought.

Chief among the long-forgotten memories of resentment was the overwhelming hatred of… him. Winston The Golden, prophet of The Landlord, a name that now filled Flynn with a most disarming terror. He had looked into the eyes of pure, unfettered hate, and those eyes had looked back unblinking. He had to be stopped. Whatever crimes the Lich Lord had committed, Flynn was convinced that he was at least not insane… not in a conventional sense. Winston was powerful, influential, and above all mad. Driven to the brink by almost two centuries of resentment. Flynn was sure of that, if nothing else.

But between them stood the only thing that could match Winston’s anger. The Profane. Now a shambling husk, a hollow shell with a flicker of loathing floating around inside, too small to be called a soul, yet more intense in its wrath than any being should be capable of. Flynn had felt his loathing too. It was a sad feeling. A pitiable mockery of human emotion, clinging weakly to ancient flesh. Elven children still scare each other with tales of the Lendelwood Butcher, and the bard knew enough to understand that fear was well founded. He couldn’t bring himself to feel it, however. He couldn’t even make himself despise the man, despite his crimes and horrors. He pitied him, more than anything else. Flynn had seen the Butcher’s life and death. He’d experienced his reawakening. There was nothing in that dark-hearted killer but wretchedness and sorrow. For all his wickedness, Vox had endured the worst possible punishment – he had to suffer himself, and not even death let him escape the torment of being Vox.

Was that why Flynn pitied Vox? Really? He had asked himself this. Was he simply telling himself he pitied that creature, or was it more that he empathized with him? Like Vox, Flynn too was now a dead thing, ostracized and confused and alone. His friends had told him as much that they didn’t see their old companion anymore. They saw a blasphemy, a disease to be cured or stamped out entirely. And sometimes, just sometimes, Flynn wondered if it would be easier to simply become the thing they expected him to be. The killer. The creature. The butcher. Flynn had wanted to slaughter those arrogant, pious fools at the Halls of the Valiant. It’s what Vox would have done. And it would have been so very satisfying.

Flynn sighed. Maybe he deserved a stake through the heart after all.

Brand and Diogenes were plotting something. They made no secret of it. They were confident that they would “get their friend back” by any means necessary. Flynn was sure of it. Part of him wanted to stop them – he had grown used to this power, and he did not want to just give it up. He balked at the idea of the Keymaster and the druid stealing his strength from him, robbing him of his newfound abilities. Part of him wanted nothing more than to be rescued, to be the old Flynn Flashwood again and have the trust of his friends back.

But Flynn had done… questionable things… to get where he was. He feared a return to normalcy, because if he had to step out into the light, it would shine on all those dark, dark things he’d had to do. And then there would be more lies, more shame, more guilt. All the things he’d said goodbye to, the crippling things that had gnawed at him in life. He’d hate himself for what he’d done. The morals ignored, the laws violated. Flynn would come to loathe what he’d allowed himself to be.

by Flannel

Wyatt had never run so fast in his whole life. The hard cobblestones made his feet hurt, his heels especially—fine shoes are not for running… at least that’s what his mother would say. But, there was no time to waste! Ever since buying Tempest Burbage’s Fine Blackmusic Masque of Theater from Hame Burbage, he’d been on the sidelines of a failing acting company watching his mother’s money and his own future shrivel into irrelevance.

All of his friends patroned artists, but he wanted to be the true star—and why not? Count Lothono’s son, Crizzen, he had made himself more than passing famous for that bawdy song he wrote (which his tutor actually wrote, but Crizzen took credit for). They sing it in alehouses, earthy and tawdry, all along the waterfront and someone raises a toast to the (ludicrous name) Count of Choruses every time. Wyatt knew he was jealous, but that didn’t make him feel any more magnanimous about it.

The cobblestones turned to packed earth as he crossed his way out of the Centira into the common streets of Bet Urala. He felt something tear in his pants, He cursed his state of dress—appropriate sashes and breeches for an afternoon lunch with mother and her friends. Only moments ago, he’d been sitting demurely, purring and nodding his pleasantries.

And when word came from Kingsly, the troupe’s playwright, that he’d completed the play Wyatt had been funding for months now? When the reality came over him that this epic story would be told with the gravity and power of his own skill? That throngs of people would mark the day they saw his production as the day they truly knew why Muses mused and why Emperor Kakilas’s famed addage was true that the breathe of the gods really was the art of the player…

…when the word came, Wyatt tore himself from tea and shouted his apologies to mother and made for the playhouse. Fucking Kingsly. A fortune and an age and lots of patience and finally, a play wholey new and—if the old goat wasn’t simply lying—maybe his finest work.

And the lead? Only Wyatt of House Stoneberry—the Lord of Monologues… or something. He’d had no luck thinking a great name for himself (fucking Crizzen, the gadfly).

He skidded and tripped headfirst into the old birch door of Burbage’s playhouse. He felt a gash on his temple as the wood of the doorjam punished him for the intrusion. A moment of horror took him as he realized the blood he wiped from his cheek was his own—and had it not been for Udom and Banks dragging him off of the floor, and slapping some wind and focus into his back while doing it (laughing as well, bastards), he might have vomited at the thought of it all. Muck about his clothes, blood on his face, and the surly and lowly actors and artisans of the troupe staring at their patron (and star) trying to suppress giggles and fits. Their hushed murmurs were as embarrassing as they were infuriating. Wyatt felt his face grow red and warm.

“My lord Wyatt…! I did not expect you so soon” a gravelly voice called from behind the the piles of seafaring set pieces. Kingsly dragged his bad leg with him as he walked, frowining at his quill and the book he was scribbling in as he did so. A man in motion, always restless, that he could not sit still even while writing always made Wyatt uncomfortable. A man should sit as often as there is a place to, his father had said. The most dangerous man, the most powerful, is the one that sits while others fidget about. It never made sense to Wyatt, but then again he’d never thought too hard about it either.

“Master Kingsly, I came right away when I heard you had finished the work—I am… most anxious, indeed most anxious, to begin preparing for the role of…”, his manner slipped a moment as he grasped for… well, damn. Wyatt realized he’d never so much as asked Kingsly about the parts to be played.

“…the hero? Yes?”, Kingsly cocked an eyebrow at him with a small smile.

“Yes, yes, of course. The Hero. Bold, eh? I should play him as bold as the great heroes of the empire of old, you say?”, Wyatt could see himself on the stage, painted gold armor, thundering fear into the villain of the piece. His jaw strong and his words shaking the first few rows in its powerful inflection. He would be The Valiant come again, if only for the night.

“—hardly ever, so there was not a need. I didn’t think it spoke well to do that. But, I’m sure we can place you well enough”, Kingsly droned on while returning to his scribbing.

“What?”

“I said, there is no hero in the piece, my lord Stoneberry. The history is spare, of course, but this is only a tragedy. Everyone dies at the end. The only hero, I suppose, is the priest—but, even—”

Wyatt leaped in “Priest! Yes, of course! I have had versatile lessons in the manner of a godly character from the great Wotton Henks, of course. I can he the cleansing heroic priest that brings life and love and wisdom to the world”, Wyatt could see it now. The robe flowing and his role as the ever-present central figure of the story. Being the sage to the king that is a fool, being the quest-giver to the hero who dies, the desireable to the girl who cannot have him, the virtuous and the noble priest… he will save the kingdom and want nothing in return.

“—died anyway. But, that’s how these things go.”

“Hunh?”

Kingsly sighed, “I said, my lord, that the priest dies. They all die. The priest is part of the reason they die. It’s… perhaps you’d like a reading before selecting the part you’d like to audition for, eh?”

Audition? How dare he! Like some common play actor, needing to audition! The nerve.

. . .. … …..

Chorus: The Fates beseech you, flee this place, do not stay, avert your face; to tell the tale we must retrace the path of figures lost. From Mendarn to the raging sea, on land and water, jubilee; disgraceful mein and honorees all pay the final cost.

[Curtain parts to the sea voyage set]

Celanon: Cousin! hah-HA! [Jovial, sly] Why don’t you burl the halfstead there, I have too much wind on our flank.

[Krin grabs rope, is pulled comically off his feet onto the deck]

Krin: Ahh!

Celanon: Oh, stop your prattle, cuz. Twas only a little rope and we’ve been in thicker swells this far out to sea before.

Krin: It’s not the elope of the rope, Cel; but the scope of the slope when you sail. By the gods great and small, can’t you steer this thing at all?

Celanon: Haha! I could sail this Golden Storm to the ends of the earth itself!

Krin: [sitting and pouting on deck] Such a name, you dolt. Would that your Storm could rain gold we wouldn’t have to ferry crates of this up the coast and crates of that back down just to pay for dinner.

Celanon: Psshhh, perk up my brother of the sea. Perk up. My Golden Storm rains well enough to put food in your belly and wine in your flask does it not? Well enough to pay for a little more than that besides. Have you talked to our new quartermaster?

Krin: Him? [exasperated] But whatever am I to do, cuz? I’m no sailor and now this oily bearded devotee is to take my job?

Celanon: Oh, Krinaldo, my sweet faced. I have bought you secrets from the Academy of Cosolen and you still have the finest cabin on this old boat. Let the priest count the chickens and boxes, and devote your mind to higher goals. It is my love for you, cuz, that I do this. You, amongst all in the world, have a mind and a will to change all things. I promised your mother I’d see that you learned of the world and learned to make it your own. You have a talent for conjuring, my friend. I will help you develop it. Even if that means only putting shelter over your head and salt beef in your belly and paying Financier Winston Dashingstash to keep the books in your stead.

Krin: [pouting] I just want to be useful. I want to pull my own weight. I may be small, but I have a power inside me.

Celanon: I don’t doubt it, boy. By the by, would you grab me that rope?

[Krin grabs rope and is jerked off his feet again, Celanon laughs]

. . .. … …..

Wyatt clutched his sheaf of papers while moving about the stage. They put the greathelm on Udom to hide his skin—the thought of that hobgoblin playing an Eldoran soldier was hilarious. And to his credit, the hobgoblin managed a convincing accent and his manner was almost regal. Wyatt was a bit jealous, honestly. He might have to ask Kingsly about trading parts. The Eldoran had the best lines, all about strength and honor. He even had a dark past, some old war perhaps? Or a crime of passion? The mystery of the Eldoran only made the first act more fascinating.

Kingsly read through the scene’s actions. A storm. He gave notes to the triplets about how to make the sounds most realistic and a shopping list. Storm rages. A subplot with other players as the hero Paladins of the Valiant who he says will show in Act 2 believing the protagonists are criminals but get swayed by a speech from the priest. Wyatt wanted to read the speech out, but Kingsly was adamant that this walkthrough exercise was for interactions with the main cast and not monologues.

The protagonists are all shipwrecked on a jungle island in the far south, blown off course by the Storm Lord in his rage against the perversions of the Brandobian Empire. Celanon the Captain lays on the beach with broken legs and cannot continue the journey. Krin, the boy mystic, nearly dies and is brought back by the priest Winston (who throws coppers to the audience everytime he does a miracle). The Eldoran with dark secrets is with them. The blonde elf, Mistress Lovely, who was travelling to her sick mother on the ship is washed up to shore with them and it is Krin that wakes her from her coma with a kiss. The act ends with them all on the shore amidst wreckage.

So far, Wyatt was pleased with his role—more than he had thought. The coin tossing was a little pedestrian, but it was sure to get him talked about by the crowds. The story seemed good, he was eager to read on.

. . .. … …..

Krin: Lovely creature.

Lovely: Oh. But when you say my name, I must shield my eyes, for they tell the truth of my heart.

Krin: It is that heart that I would hear truth from.

Lovely: But, what if it is a lying heart? What if it only tells you what you wish to hear?

Krin: [Excitedly] Then hear it well I would! What man would not like to hear what he desires? What would your lying hear say to my hungry ears?

Lovely: They would… keep a lady’s silence. [Impish look]

Krin: Oh, truly… then I would speak my magic words and pry the truth from your lying heart.

Lovely: [Taken aback] Would you then? Can there be no secrets?

Krin: The world speaks to me, the heavens and the stars as well. I hear their secrets and know the movings of the world, but the movings of your beauty and your lovely heart would be worth more than all the golden roses in the far kingdom of Ualia.

Lovely: [smiling again] You must be a mage, Krin my love.

Krin: [Confused] Why?

Lovely: For you know the true and deep words that touch me deeply. You know my secrets, for you know my true love of you.

Krin: And you know mine.

Lovely: But, I must attend Celanon, he is still hurt and I fear he may catch fever.

Krin: [Unsmiling] Take not too much care that you forget me.

Lovely: [Leaving] Never in eternity.

[Krin slides out of view and we are further down the beach]

Celanon: Oh! Wine! Only more wine!

Winston: Vox, hold him down, I cannot bring him relief when he struggles so.

[Vox pins Celanon down]

Winston: Better. Now, I fear the leg must come off, Captain Vronn. It will kill you as surely as the fire of a dragon if you don’t let me.

[Celanon screams and whimpers in pain]

Lovely: Perhaps I can help.

Winston: [Charming smile] Oh, Lovely—you are only too dangerous for him to be near, a bad leg will kill him slowly, but if you take his breath away with your beauty he will not survive the minute.

Lovely: Flattery, priest. A golden tongue indeed, and not just a golden hand, then?

[Winston raises gold hand]

Winston: And why not? The Landlord has no greater servant than the priest who would gild his own flesh. You should see the great heroes of my faith, Lovely, half made of gold themselves.

Lovely: No, all of that luster would blind me. I prefer the roots and trees of my people. And might save our Captain with those yet.

Winston: Then I leave you to your earthy magics, Lovely. I will pray.

[Winston leaves, Vox stands to go]

Lovely: Oh, Celanon. You will die, I know. There are no magics to save you, but I would know if you’d have mercy from me sooner than more pain from the Profiteer.

[Celanon whispers, looking fever mad]

Lovely: What? Closer?

[Celanon holds her close and whispers to her ear]

Celanon: You bring me an offer of death? Then I trade you in the same coin. Butcher of Eldor… silence her.

[Vox lashes a whip around her neck so she cannot scream, and stabs her through the back]

Vox: Unclean thing.

Celanon: [in pain] Oh, no… no, what have we done?!?

Vox: It was necessary. She claimed power over you. Their kind cannot be allowed the assumption.

The suspense was killing him! Oh, this was Burbage’s finest play. Kingsly’s best story. The tale was gripping, and Kingsly says it was even true! A history! It was said that the Emperor was mad for histories, but writing the same old stories over and over? The conquering of this or that? Boring.

This was such new history. Kingsly says if the troupe can hurry and get some xostumes doublequick, they could be performing this on the centennial of the return of the Prince!

Oh, that Crizzen would shit his pretty silver pants.

Wyatt… heir of Stoneberry… on stage in front of the great and good acting out the story from one century ago. Live.

Gods above… his was a destiny of greatness.

The second act was a series of racing adventures. They find a dragon (Wyatt cringed ad that old story-telling device… there’s ALWAYS a dragon there to give the heroes a ride, it seems). Celanon (with padded shirt to make him look like he is growing fat) returns home now that he cannot go on, but hires dark men to watch his cousin for fear of him finding out. Krin regards Winston warily, suspecting those coins to be evidence of wrongdoing, and as he mourns his love he turns to whispering in the night to creatures the audience cannot sea and his make-up grows pale. Winston’s arm becomes gold and he serves as the comic relief, it seems, for most of the act. Vox says little, but has two amazing fight scenes that Udom seems to have down pat.

They travel to an ancient forest and kill a demon. They are cornered by paladins of the Valiant who judge them true—but Krin tricks them by giving everyone rings to hide their secrets. They are confronted by a lute player who tells them riddles (and is there to tell the audience some of the secrets of the characters). Wyatt could imagine the audience gasping when the Lutist on the road sings his song and sings to Krin that “a man would pay any price to be with his love, but the coin is false”.

Wyatt read ahead while they were in the scene where they trick the hobgoblin king into giving them his sword.

“WAIT!” he barked just as Udom was braying his lines to the demon prince.

Kingsly looked up, face annoyed and curious.

“I kill Kakelas?”

Everyone stared at Wyatt.

“I mean… no. Right. So Winston kills the Prince with the sword of the goblin king? I can’t do that”

Kingsly’s teeth ground under his greying beard.

“And why?”, he asked flatly.

“Well”, Wyatt tossed his hands about searching for a way to explain, “I mean, what will everyone think? I can’t act like I’m killing a Prince. That would be unseemly.”

Kingsly took a deep breath and sat down on a crate.

“My lord, it isn’t real. It is a play. And that is actually what happened?”, He started.

“I KNOW it is a play, Master Kingsly. I am NOT a moron”, Wyatt sneered, “I mean to say that a gentleman does not appeal to the low thrills of political dissent.” The words came trickling out of him, he was sure his father had said something much like that when he was alive, but it didn’t matter. He was not going to play the murderer of the Lost Prince on stage before the court or nobility. He was not the villain.

Kingsly grumbled, running his hand through his thinning hair. He glared at Wyatt, and Wyatt glared back.

An hour, some yelling, a few drinks, and Belila flirting at the young lord and they managed to come to an agreement that the sword should be magical and the priest would kill the prince because he was possessed by an evil spirit. Where the damned priest is supposed to get a magic sword and why it’d be here… fuck. Whatever. Kingsly sribbled the notes about having the dragon give them one and winced at the sloppy storytelling.

Bart was doing a good job with the young mage, though—Kingsly was proud of that boy. His mama always said he should stay away from the stage, but he’s got the blood of an artist in him. Kingsly was proud to see him hunched and sneering as Krin, from the flush and funny boy in the first act. He’d go far.

. . .. … …..

[In a fiery dungeon]

Winston: I call you devil! I call you unholy!

Krin: I call myself righteous, priest. And you have had no quarrel with my power before.

Winston: But, this is too much. Sweet Celanon, laid low and risen by your foul magics. It is not done, Krin!

Krin: I Say tis done. And he complains not at all [evil cackle]. He was my true cousin and your murder of him was a thing I could not abide.

Winston: Murder, you say, but all souls live to be weighed and his was dark indeed. He was the one that took your Lovely! Your suspicions poisoned out bond, you who I would call brother!

Krin: You are no brother of mine, speaker of lies. It was you who killed Vox in the catacombs of the mountain king! I saw you speak his death with my own eyes!

[fire explosions, rumbling of cavein]

Winston: It was more than he deserved. For his crimes, he should suffer worse hells.

Krin: Then we must be enemies, you and I. Our friendship in the dirt. Our fellowship only ashes.

Winston: I cast thee out, then. By my power and your true name, I banish you. Mine is the power of the glory of the god of coin and his might is rich indeed!

Krin: Ah, but you have forgotten!

[pulls a box from under his mottled rotted robes]

Krin: I have the heart of the Prince here. Plucked from his chest while you ran from your petty crimes and murders. And the heart of a Prince is the power that moves the heavens. SONA-SHO-KA-KALIKAS!!!

[Streams of gold silk fall in ribbons over Winston]

Winston: Nooooo! What have you done?

Krin: I have bound your God to my will, for I am more powerful than any god. He will wash my feet and sup of my scraps. And you are now powerless to stop it.

Winston: You may have ensnared the Profit Lord, but you will never ensnare me! Mercy, away!

[Mercy, the magic horse, swoops in and carries Winston away]

Winston: I will revenge myself one day, I swear it!

Krin: Good riddance, this new kingdom of mine could do with fewer oiled men in pretty clothes. I like naught but the tatters. They remind me of the flesh I rend from the weak. [cackles]

[Celanon crumbles to the ground and after wiping his face quickly on sleeve, looks healthy and alive again]

Celanon: Cousin!

Krin: You cannot be alive! Winston murdered you!

Celanon: I have been called to the skies, cousin. I have repented my sins. It was I who killed dear Lovely. I took from you all your joy. I may not have raised the sword myself, but I killed her as surely as if I had.

Krin: Why now? Why tell me now?

[Celanon rising]

Celanon: To tell you it is not too late. The gods will judge you Krin, for binding one of their own. Repent and you may be saved.

Krin: I can never be saved!

Celanon: You can! Pass me the rope, cuz… I’ll hold on tight for you.

[Krin searches for rope, but finds only frayed and rotted strands]

Krin: I have none. I cannot go. What will become of me?

[Booming voice of the gods from offstage]

Gods: You are cursed, Krin the Unclean, the Arcane, the Dark… we return your curse upon you and free our brother the Landlord. You sought to bind, and now be bound yourself. Your prison shall be this place where you betrayed your own. And for your only company, you shall have the one who killed your love and he shall never die—to remind you of your folly.

[Vox walks in, armor rusted and dented]

Gods: These things we visit on you. That all may know your crimes.

. . .. … …..

The playhouse was quiet in the hour before opening night of “The Tale of Vronn and McDashingstash”. Burbages was filled to the brim with people, the only sounds in the darkened theater being the wheeze of the wind through the attic crawlspace high above the stage.

Kingsley was backstage, doubled over with one hand on the old soft boards. His knees pressed hard into the floor. His body shaking, blood from where his left eye used to be streaming down his cheek and kissing his lips.

Wyatt was out on stage, Face down, wearing ornate robes of fake gold. Eighty-four people lay in their seats, bleeding from their eyes and noses and mouths, staring off into nothing—the stillness of death.

The large armored figure moved slowly, dragging his foot. Kingsly thought he was being mocked, but the dark figure made his way slowly toward him with no humor evident behind that plated exterior.

The gutteral whisper echoed from deep inside the metal shell.

“Unclean.”

The sword slipped quietly through the air and took Kingsly’s head off.

My mission has taken from one side of the land to the other and back again. I have gathered little information about this great evil. The Dark One is an elusive one and leaves very little behind to follow. I still don’t even know if this evil is made of flesh or some godly creature. All I have is assumptions of who he might be, Krin the Arcane. I do not know if this is him or not but this is the man or thing I am looking for know for it is the only being the fits the profile. If it is not, I shall destroy his wicked ways anyway.

This being is slowly taking a toll on my party. One by one each is losing faith. We have completely lost the wizard known as Astrid. She has had a taste of what she thinks is power and isn’t thinking clearly anymore. Last I heard of her she is destroying boats in the ocean under false pretenses of surrender. Flynn has given up altogether on his condition and decided to embrace the unnatural ways for the night. I can still use him for the benefit of good. He has great power and sometimes you need to fight fire with fire. They want to fight with undead powers, then I will use their tactics against them and bring an undead of my own. This will be their undoing. Brand was a cheerful guy once, until he came back from a meeting with his church. He meet with a council to discuss a matter he has been following most his life, brought them solid evidence and instead of backing him, they decide to mock him. From the sound of it this rot has not affected all but for it to be in the churches is very tragic. I will see how far this rot has gone in the churches and cleanse the land of impurities. As for Odom, my Half-orc friend, he is a kind one but it is only a matter of time before his orc side takes over and he starts rapeing everything in sight.

As for me, I am not clean myself. I have not protected my party against the rot that infects this land, strong undead villains to escaped and the Dark One to gain far too much influence amongst the land. I see these as failures on my behalf. I shall not fail this land. I will not. Drastic times call for drastic measures. I will not allow any longer let the ones aligned with the Dark One live. I will remove the corruption by force and the corrupted will be destroyed. I am a defender of my woodland palace. My enemy made a grave mistake threatening my home. Their lives will be sufficient enough for atonement.

The big priest was still in a bad mood three days after he met with the council. “Look at you.” “Dressed in your armor, and your weapons.” “The Riftmaster would be displeased with you.” Keyholder Gregor had said as much in front of the others. He called Brand a liar, and a fool for chasing myths and legends. Brand walked out of that council chamber utterly deflated. It was all for nothing. None of this mattered.

When Brand left the church to go out and seek the truth of all of this, he had done so with the eyes of a child. He saw the best in people. He gave them the benefit of the doubt. He would always try and do things the right way. The way his father would have done things. However, when he returned to tell of his deeds, and seek the approval of his seniors, he left that council chamber with the jaded eyes of one who sees the world for what it is. Full of cowards and greedy men. Nothing but liars and disappointment.

He had single handedly discovered one of the greatest legends of not only his church, but of the Church of the Landlord as well. What was his reward? Being called crazy and a liar. Being branded as a heretic and one who doesn’t worship his god the right way. Did these old priests forget about balance? Did they forget that the great Riftmaster requires his servants to strive for balance in ALL things? This is why he devoted himself to steel as well as fire. This is why he dressed the way he did. This was the reason he studied the art of combat as well as magic.

Maybe it was the adventure itself that was taking a toll, but Brand could feel it. He could feel the unease and the tension in himself. He could feel the jovial, always smiling nature slowly being discarded. He could see how he was becoming harder. Colder. Odom didn’t seem that bothered by all of it. He was still as headstrong as ever, and his heart was still in the right place. Who knew what Diogenes thought about all of this? The druid was as hard to read as anyone he had ever met.

Flynn had lost faith in him. That was clear. He talked to the Bard many times about his condition, and tried his best to convince Flynn that he could fix it. It didn’t matter in the end. Just like all things in this world his friend had been corrupted. Turned into one of those gods damned creatures they were fighting so hard to rid the world of. They spent a month or more in that hellish place of skulls and death. Cursing it. Destroying it in the end, but not really accomplishing anything at all. For all that they had done, Flynn still chose to go over to that side even though Brand had assured him that it could be fixed. After all they had been through, and all the talks they had, Flynn, in the end, didn’t trust him, and chose to go it alone.

It was becoming all too clear to the big priest. Trust was not something anyone in his world was interested in. The priests of his church were corrupted, or didn’t care. Flynn was no longer Flynn, and Brands activities in the church got him nothing but scorn. His father would always say that “good guys always win.” This was a man who had never seen anything outside of a small town in Brandobia. Of course he thought that. “I am glad you never got to see any other parts of this dark world old man. At least you left it with your spirit in tact.” Brand was done with his classes for the night and walked wearily to his chambers. He fought sleep for a long while that night and couldn’t push the thought from his mind. “In this world, maybe good guys don’t win.”

Flynn wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, dropping the still-twitching corpse of the rat over the side of the boat. As he heard the drained remnants of dinner hit the water with a splash, he held his hand up, and considered the moonlight reflecting off the crimson stains clinging to his skin.

The bard had once considered himself able to see the beauty in all things, but here, in this very moment, he realized how blind he’d truly been. He had merely looked at beautiful things before. He had not SEEN them. Stood here, alone on the deck, the cold night air sweeping around him, he understood what beauty truly was. Beauty was that first moment of freedom each evening, after hiding from the Sun in a box for twelve hours. Beauty was that first drop of warm blood, chasing down the bread and the ale that tasted as dust on his tongue. Beauty was the night, for the days had been taken from him. Beauty is death, for only through death had Flynn become able to appreciate those small glimmers of life left to him.

If his recent transition had brought him one other gift, it was clarity. The dreaming had stopped. The memories of other men no longer flowed unbidden into his mind, as they had while his heart still beat. He was no longer visited by visions of Krinn, Nadirin, Vox, Winston, or the people they slaughtered. He could still remember much of what they did, but he was no longer forced to witness it all, his eyes pried open. Ironic… because so much of what they did no longer seemed to bother him. He could recall Nadirin shooting fleeing gnomes in the back, he could see The Arcane burn cities to the ground, and he could sense the exact moment in which the tip of Vox’s sword delicately pierced an innocent tradesman’s eyeball, but imagery that once turned his stomach now seemed so… mundane.

Flynn Flashwood was still a good man. He was certain of this. He’d followed the ritual to the letter, and it ensured that he was still himself, but his resolved had most definitely hardened. He knew what was right, and he wanted to do what was right, but he felt compelled by no conscience. There wasn’t that burning pit of guilt that always tugged at his soul in times past. Well, he supposed he didn’t have a soul to tug anymore.

In some twisted way, Flynn reasoned, he was a more moral being as a result of all this. After all, he was unfettered by shame, free of obligation to gods or the civilization that now would spurn him. People did good because it was a compulsion. It was in their nature, governed by guilty thoughts, and reinforced by society’s subjective idea of justice.

But that wasn’t Flynn. He didn’t feel guilty anymore, and what society would have him now? He wasn’t an animal, spurred by instinct toward good behavior, and he wasn’t a puppet on a string, dancing to the rules of the self-proclaimed righteous. He had what no mortal could claim to have – TRUE free will. TRUE choice.

Flynn Flashwood could choose his own way, and his way would be more righteous than any other.

And they call vampires the unholy ones.

The bard smiled to himself, briefly, before he thought of his friends once more. Their reactions still ate at him, gnawed at his dead heart like so many worms. They didn’t see things his way, he knew. His feelings on this were… complicated. Flynn was incapable of feeling remorse for what he’d done, unable to be ashamed of himself, and logically he saw no cause to feel that way in the first place. Even so… he did not enjoy the way they looked at him, and he especially hated the disappointment in Brand’s eyes every time they spoke. He could always see it, behind the keyholder’s face, that ghost of pity glaring back at him. He found the druid’s open contempt more palatable than Brand’s pity.

For why should Flynn be pitied? If only they knew how this felt. If only could understand why he did what he did, if they could stop for one second and ask themselves what they would do, truly, in his position? If only they could taste this power. The fools!

“Now now,” reprimanded Flynn. “That’s how villains think. You’re a hero, and so are they. They’re all just confused right now. They don’t see things as clearly as you do.”

He had to prove to his friends that he was still a good man. They’d understand, if they could open their minds and give him a chance. All it would take is time.

Flynn struggled in the chair, the vines binding his wrists to the armrests refusing to yield. He pulled with his considerable strength, every muscle in my body screaming in desperation, but to no avail. His eyes darted left and right, panicked, as the horrible little creatures waddled forward, the larger among them carrying a huge blade. The reality of what was about to happen dawned on him and he tried with the last of his strength to break free.

The blade cut clean through his arm, and as the agony coursed through him, he woke up.

Flynn sat bolt upright, cold sweat clinging to his face, breath ragged. He grasped at his hand – still attached. He was not in the great garden. He had not fought ethereal spiders, nor become the fancy of horrific bodily mutation. He was not with the greedy cleric or the dread necromancer. He was not the Lendelwood Butcher.

The bard could not adequately explain what had happened, for there was no way he could convey the experience to any of his companions. How could they hope to understand? In one single instance, Flynn’s mind had been torn open as the combined experiences of Brandobia’s greatest monsters forced their way in. He could see it all… he could FEEL it all. Some nights he could sense the chill touch of the hobgoblin general snaking its way into his very soul, his very being. Some nights he would be dragged into that leering green mouth, sucked into the very essence of nothingness. Some nights he heard the Earth Spider whisper, as it did to Krinn – words unintelligible, motives unspeakable, the very music of madness. This night it was Vox, a being so vile that his kind dared speak of him only as a fairytale. But he was real. Flynn knew he was real, for Flynn had held the whip, tightened the screws, twisted the blade. He had been the Profane. He had been all of these… creatures.

Whatever happened when Flynn had cast the spell on that golden finger, something unplanned had happened. It was… too much. No riddles, no visions, no mere strands of information. When he thought of those men, those murderers and malcontents looking for any port in a storm to ravage, it was as if he’d been there, among them.

As Mercy had been… that bastard. That lying, treacherous…

Flynn sighed. No good would come of cursing his ancestor now. Living as Mercy must surely had been curse enough. What mattered was the present – Flynn Flashwood had seen things buried by history, things deliberately and carefully hidden from civilization’s records. He had, indeed, seen things that no man was meant to see. He wished he could unsee it all. He feared going back to sleep, back to that world of fire and blood and anguish.

Perhaps he should stay up, just this night. It was quiet, after all. This strange marshland was been eerily peaceful, and they were safe in the hut. Yes, Flynn would work on a new song, maybe, to put his mind at rest.

Flynn Flashwood had done it. By the Gods, he’d actually done it. From Zoa to Brandobia, the youngest of the Flashwoods had traveled halfway across the world, survived the dead and the dragons, and done what no Bastard of Mercy had ever done. He had taken the map, he had used the map, and he had discovered the fabled treasure promised to his people by B’sar Ebonflowerwood himself. He thought of cousin Fel’dwyn’s smug boasts, and uncle Saeren Fogchildwood, who always sneered when Flynn defended his family branch’s honor. He thought of them and laughed.

“Dearest family member,” Flynn scratched into the cave wall, above the deflated body of the recently slain Beholder. "I am Flynn Flashwood, and if that name sounds familiar, you’re probably here because of Mercy’s map. Well, Flynn was here first. He came, he saw, and he spent it all. Give my regards to the rest of the family, and from the bottom of my heart… fuck you.

Love,
B’sar Ebonflowerwood’s ballsiest descendant."

Once he got back to civilization, Flynn planned to arrange to send the map back home. Maybe none of them would ever try and do what he had done, but he hoped they would. The joke was too delicious to waste.

So that was that. Flynn Flashwood had stolen a map, joined a military company, became an accidental folk hero, met an unlikely band of warriors, had completed his life’s goal. And he was barely a man grown! What else was there to do? Flynn did not know, but the possibilities excited him. Though his companions were sometimes petty, and more than a little combative, they were fire-forged allies and he just knew in his bones that destiny had more in store for them. In the name of history, he had to see what they’d all do next. Someone had to be there to record their exploits, compose great songs of their deeds, and maybe spend a little of the gold they’d surely make.

On the boat back to Cosdal, Flynn sat quietly below decks, lute in hand, as he picked out a simple melody. He was composing The Liar’s Island, a tale of five adventurers who sought treasure in a frozen isle of illusions. The song would have great battles, conflicts between friends, and end in rousing victory. Through the night, Flynn sang of Brand the giant killer, a man of God who fought with both book and blade. He sang of Odom, the savage half-orc with a gentle heart. He sang of Astrid, a powerful mage who kissed death and danced with dark secrets. He sang of Diogenes, the stern and stoic druid. And he sang of their final companion, who shielded them from evil and lifted their spirits when things looked dark. He sang of Verene.

They would be the five who brought a new legend to the Kingdoms of Kalamar. Brand, Odom, Astrid, Diogenes, and Verene.

Brand was still awake as the sun was topping the glacier. It was false dawn, and the others were still asleep, or meditating. That was good, they would need their rest. After today, it was a small wonder that any of them could sleep. He donned his small clothes and his great cloak, and stepped out of the tiny magic-dome. Flynn’s hut had served them well on their journey so far. It was warm, and comfortable, and one could feel relatively safe in its confines. Flynn assured him time and again that nothing would penetrate it; even spells. Brand put that to the test one night when he was sure no one was watching and sure enough, his holy bolt just bounced off of the thing without even a sound. Apparently no one on the inside could hear it either.

It was below freezing outside, and Brand crunched snow as he made his way back to the edge of the cliff. He looked out over the icy waters, and produced a small flame to keep himself alive. He knew he could only stay out here minutes, but he couldn’t be in there with them. Not right now.

For some reason these people accepted him as some kind of leader. He found that he was making more and more decisions for the group. He bought the supplies, and picked the routes. Odom, the half-orc who had been with this little traveling party the longest was quick to get rid of his authority and even asked on one occasion “You are the leader, where are we going?” This was not what he signed up for. How could he, a lowly keyholder, be responsible for these people? It was something he thought much about in the last week or so.

These people were slowly becoming friends. They laughed together, and ate together. He sang songs with Flynn, and learned from Diogenes. Brand had a terrible singing voice, but the Bard always acted like it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard when Brand got into the drink and actually started belting words to songs he half knew. The druid was a silent guardian. Never taking any credit for the wondrous things he did, but somehow he always managed to get them out of trouble. He respected Odom for his huge heart, and the way he was always easy to smile. He had just gotten to know Astrid, but there was a spark of friendship there as well. These people had told him that Astrid was power hungry and self serving. While this was true, he also saw something else in her. Power, sure, but deeper than that was the want for acceptance. She needed a channel for her great power. She needed a release.

The wind was getting stronger and the cold even colder. As he thought about these people, and the deeds they had done he sunk to his knees. Brand wept. Alone, in the cold he sobbed and clutched at his little holy symbol. He almost let her die. The weight of her limp, cold body was still fresh in his mind. The way the others were so quite when he pulled her from the water. They knew. So did he. She was dead. She had frozen to death right there in front of everyone. She almost made the swim. The druid turned into a fish and swam his way out. Flynn hit a chord on his lute and disappeared. When it happened, Brand smiled. He had seen that trick before, and knew the Bard was safely outside. He went last, and he was glad he did. In front of him he could see Astrid struggling. The rest of the swim was a blur. He remembered carrying her body up the cliff face as fast as he could. He remembered calling to his god and begging for her life.

Brand sobbed in the snow as he thought about himself. He was a boy. How could he keep this up? He had no experience with these things. Brand cried there in the snow for what seemed like hours. This was weakness, and he knew it. He clutched at his symbol, and thought back to his days in the Temple. Thought about his mission and clenched his jaw. “No”, he said outloud. “I will not let this happen again.” Brand clenched his fist around his holy symbol and stood. He raised his head high and his thoughts went to the others in his group. The ones who had been through so much with him. He thought about the great weight of his mission should he succeed. He screamed for all the Gods of Tellene to hear. “I will be the hammer that shapes this world.” “I will be the light that shines in the darkness.” “I will be the rock that the waves cannot smash.” “I am magic!” The boy was dead.

Ever since I saw it, the book has been calling me. The promises of power that it holds, but yet I have not been able to bring myself to open it. I fear what it may do to me if I do. I know it holds evil and I may be forever changed if I read its contents. So for months I have held onto it and every day that I do I come closer and closer to finally giving in to the temptation. But then I met Brand. At first I thought he was just some religious d-bag trying to push his religion on me. I just became a member of the church so I could get access to their library. I don’t want to hear all the crap this guy is spewing. Then I heard the word “power”. Now he had my attention. He started to tell me that through the Riftmaster church I could be a god. A God. I had always imagined myself the ruler of a kingdom. But I could rule the world. Have infinite power. The cleric didn’t say how I could accomplish this, but he did say that I would have to stay away from evil. If he only knew how close I currently was to it. His words gave me a lot to think about. He may be full of it, but maybe not.

Then it happened. I died. I never thought it would happen this soon. I still had so much to do. I could feel my spirit leave my body, but suddenly I heard a call. It asked me if I wanted to come back. Yes! Please yes! When I awoke, I was in the hut with everyone. Brand had brought me back. He didn’t have to, but he did. I owe him a huge debt. He wants to teach me the ways of the Riftmaster. I think I’ll follow him. He obviously thought I was worth saving. I just hope I’m strong enough. The book keeps calling.

It was quiet in the hut as Flynn sat, leaning against his traveling back, eyes scanning the interior of his safe haven. Astrid lay shivering on the ground, swaddled in whatever spare clothing the group could contribute. Brand was sat next to her, clutching his body and shaking uncontrollably, while Diogenes produced an ethereal fire to keep them as war as possible. Odom, for his part, lie exhausted on the ground, the encounter in the false tomb having sapped him of all his strength.

And Flynn felt fine.

He had barely experienced the chill of the icy lake. He didn’t have to swim back to shore, to fight an oppressive current, or drag himself up the sheer wall to safety. A simple strum on his lute and he was out of his horrific underwater trap. But Astrid had died, and he could have saved her. Were it not for the divine intervention of Brand, she would have remained dead still. The holy man had brought her back. Flynn had watched, helpless above them, as the cleric dragged his friend from the deadly blue depths and up the face of the wall. All the musician could do was play his music and create another one of those magical huts. Another bloody hut, while the real heroes brought a woman back from the grasp of death itself.

The worst part was that Flynn could have prevented it all. While he watched Astrid get battered by the water and frozen into unconsciousness, he suddenly remembered that his little teleportation trick had room for two. He could have grabbed her and brought her with him. But no. He had to show off. He thought it would be funny if they all swam back to the surface, scaled the edge of the chasm, and found their musical friend playing a little ditty and asking what took them so long. He didn’t think to bring the lady with him. He was too busy worrying about looking better than everybody else.

And she had died because of him. Because of his ego.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid bastard,” Flynn thought to himself as he watched his friends shudder and grimace. “Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID. You couldn’t, just for once, do something practical. You couldn’t put safety ahead of showmanship, could you? Just like when you stomped off down that staircase and nearly got everybody buried alive. You stupid bastard. Stupid stupid!”

Flynn had laughed it off at the time, tried to cover up how wretched he felt with yet more bravado and affected disregard. He had practiced his flippant attitude for years, refined his devil-may-care persona, buried that seething mass of self-loathing he felt, the knowledge that he was a fraud and an impostor, and most days he believed his own rubbish. He could keep looking at himself in a mirror if he believed he was the charmingly reckless, dashing folk hero he pretended to be.

Here in the hut, however, faced with the consequences of his “charming” recklessness, confronted by his own uselessness, and surrounded by people he truly felt were his betters, Flynn Flashwood felt cheap, extraneous, and worthless. He felt like a Flashwood.

Brand slayed giants and faced down dragons alone. Brand put others ahead of his own wellbeing. Brand brought a woman back from the dead and didn’t even seek praise for his deed. He was an actual hero. A big damn hero. What was Flynn Flashwood, compared to men such as he? A preening, prancing, lute-playing joke of a man. A hero only to those too gullible to see through his act. A fool, whose most notable skill was convincing other fools of his greatness.

Diogenes glanced over to Flynn, and the bard couldn’t tell if he was being regarded with contempt or sheer indifference. He never could tell with that quiet, private druid. Flynn simply flashed him a smile. A carefree, charming smile. A liar’s smile.

The light in the great library was dim at best. No candles were allowed in here for obvious reasons. Musty old tomes, and scrolls were fire waiting to happen. Instead of torches or candles, light came from glowing orbs that hovered in the air above the shelves and bookcases. They were irregularly placed and cast deep, dark shadows in the back portions of the enclave. The smell of that place made Brand happy. It was old leather, and dust: warm and inviting. Very much unlike the smells of the forge. The forge was sharp, and edgy. This was soft, and heady. Brand was finding himself spending more and more time down here. He found a love for learning, and reading. A love for languages, and lore that he would have said was crazy 2 years ago.

It had been two years since he last put hammer to metal. Two years since he last saw his little house across the street. He lived about two blocks away from the temple, but he hadn’t set foot in that house since the day he joined the church. Like most things Brand put his mind to, he was totally consumed by his tasks as an initiate into the church of the Riftmaster. The temple was a welcoming place. He felt that he had a place here as soon as Keyholder Skoria came to his shop that day, two years ago, all excited and asking about the Riftmaster. Skoria went on about magic and balance, and had asked the smith boy if he wanted a home. Brand liked that idea, and so he said yes, as long as he could still come to his forge and pound metal when the need struck. Skoria said that he could do as he liked as long as time permitted, and that was all it took to convince the boy-smith.

Brand was finding that time, however, was not as permissive as Skoria. There was no time to smith. There was no time to even sleep. He found that once consumed by something it was very, very hard to not finish that thing. Brand was finding out more about himself as the days turned to years. He was different than most men. Smarter, stronger, and more resilient than any of these old priests. He could stay awake for days at a time and not feel the effects. He could learn things faster than just about all of them. He learned three languages that year, and was working on his fourth. So he consumed himself in the library. He consumed himself with learning magic. He was finding that he could take that same passion that he applied to the forge, and apply it wherever he saw something new to learn. About two weeks after first discovering the great library, Brand was struck by the first of the dreams.

_ “Gold, and shining light. A great table spread out before the world of men. A table with majestic figures all seated and haloed in radiance. The table stretched out further than the eye could see, and sitting at it were all the gods of men. Some were arguing over things that no mortal could hope to understand, and some were placid in there sitting. Almost waiting for something to happen before they were needed. Others were huddled over their respective seats of power in the world soaking up the worship of men, and even reaching down if the necessity called for it. In the dream, Brand was floating ever forward. Glimpsing all the gods in their glory. He floated among them, un-noticed. He was being drawn by something ever forward. He knew in his soul that the Riftmaster was leading him across the table. He knew in his soul that this dream was more than a dream. Sure enough, he came upon the Sorcerer Supreme in all his glory. A skeletal figure in black and white robes shrouded by a hood of shadow. When he arrived at this seat his journey across the table stopped. The Riftmaster noticed him at once, and curled his fingers in a gesture. Brand was unsure of what the gesture meant, but he could only surmise that the great Riftmaster was pointing. Brand looked at where the skeletal fingers pointed and he saw a Golden God. A lady clad all in gold, and platinum. She was holding a platinum staff in one hand, and golden scales in the other. She was beautiful. As he gazed upon her, he saw things that made his heart wretch. He saw the gold turn to rust, and the staff fall from her hands. He saw her beautiful face and beautiful skin crumble into dust. In a moment she was gone, and what replaced her sickened Brand to his soul.”

_

He woke sweating and screaming. He dressed himself and went down to the library. He poured over books and scrolls. He needed an answer to what he just saw. Somehow he was guided to the back of the enclave. His hands were vibrating with power, and he was still sweating and anxious. He knew where to look. That was in his dream as well. He walked slowly over to a pile of scrolls in the back corner of the Library, and ran his massive hands over every piece of scroll he could find. He was shaking. He saw his hands as they touched the parchment, and he could see how unsteady they were. On the bottom of the pile, buried away from the world was a scrap of a piece of a scroll. It had an author, and the only legible writing was a name. The title: “Concerning Gods, and the balance, -Winston Chatterly.” He continued reading what he could, but the only other thing he could make out was another name. “Krin the Arcane, Blackmage of Tellene.”

Lieutenant Verene slashed this way and that, felling hobgoblin after hobgoblin with the famed brutality of a Son of Scorn. Or a daughter, in this case. One of Malleus’ favorite soldiers, Verene’s mercilessness in combat earned her the nickname of The Silencer, and Flynn Flashwood noted with some fear that The Silent would be just as apt a moniker. Her mouth remained tightly shut, her eyes unblinking, her face a statue, as she cleaved through the enemy ranks with frightening precision.

The fight had lasted near an hour. Almost one hour had passed since Verene’s unit fell to an ambush orchestrated by Duth’Sarut, a chieftain much loathed by the Sons for a year of wicked attacks. Flynn was not cut out for any of this. He had fallen in with the Sons of Scorn as a quick way to make money. Soldiers craved entertainment like any other, and Flynn’s ability with a lute, not to mention tales of macabre heroism, seemed to please Malleus’ people tremendously. He was simply providing some light melodies for a routine journey when the hobgoblins fell upon them. Now he was hiding under a caravan, watching a woman with a greatsword carve through chunks of orange flesh with the calmly rehearsed perfection of a dancer.

Most of the unit had been slain. A few soldiers were scattered into the greater wooded area. If there were others nearby, Flynn couldn’t see them. He saw only Verene cut down the last of the hobgoblins…

… almost the last.

He strode out with a hate in his eyes that Flynn had not witnessed before nor since. A boiling, bubbling, seething hatred that Flynn was sure could kill with a single glare. While the bard cowered, however, the Lieutenant met his gaze and did not break. Duth’Sarut, deftly wielding a halberd with one hand as if it were a rapier, walked at a pace most men would call running. Sparks flew as their blades kissed, a clanging of steel so loud it drowned the noise of men and hobgoblins dying among the trees. She ducked a sideways swing, he kicked away a thrust with an armored knee. Flynn watched in both terror and admiration as the battle unfolded. The violence was matched only by the beauty of it all, a deadly poetry between artists of slaughter.

It was over all too quickly.

The speartip of Duth’s halberd found its way through Verene’s armor, and at last her statue cracked. Bewilderment, absolute surprise, only a trace of pain, flickered on the soldier’s face, as her head shakily turned to regard the now smirking face of her slayer. Then anger. A sudden roar of rage as she pulled herself back and swung her greatsword, painting a silver arc through the air that sliced through the sinewy neck of the feared hobgoblin chieftain. Her final effort spent, the sword flew from Verene’s hands and landed with a clatter onto the body parts of her prior victims. Both she and her opponent fell to their knees in unison, one without a head. Then they both lay still in the dirt.

Flynn wasn’t sure when it became truly silent, but it was growing dark when he finally crawled from under the wagon, trembling and stumbling. He staggered toward Verene, her face returned to that same calm it wore in life, now perfectly framed in death. He’d never seen her so far from her sword. That wouldn’t do. She would become a part of history for this, and history should not say she died without her beloved greatsword.

The weapon was almost too heavy for the musician, and he struggled with both hands to raise it from the ground. Resting it against his shoulder, he trudged back to the corpse of the Lieutenant, prepared to lay it next to her body, and then maybe find his own way back to some city. No more of this soldiering life, he thought. No more hobgoblins.

That’s when Malleus’ company arrived, to see him with Verene’s bloody sword in his hand, and a headless hobgoblin chief at his feet.

In the months since Flynn thought back to that day, he could never work out why he stayed silent. Why, when soldiers congratulated him for avenging their beloved Verene, he allowed them to think so. Perhaps he allowed shame at his own cowardice to silence him. Maybe he was just too shellshocked to process what had happened, and it eventually became too late for the truth. Or perhaps he just loved the adoration, and went with it.

The Legend of Flynn Flashwood. A lie. A sham. And also Flynn’s ticket to whatever city in the empire he wanted.

He’d make up for it somehow, he thought to himself. Maybe if he could live up to the legend, if he could make the lies real, then it would all be okay.

And he’d immortalize Verene in song. He’d get around to it. Definitely.

When I was little my parents sent me away to live in Bet Seder with some friends of my parents. I live in the country so living in the city was going to be a new experience to me. I knew little about the the civilized world but always had a curiosity about plants. When I arrived the first thing they told me was to find some employment to help pay for things around the house. I was lucky enough to find a job at the alchemist shop. He wouldn’t allow me to mix any of the elixirs but instead he showed me what kind of herbs to pick so he could make his potions. As the years went by he trusted me more to create minor potions of healing and some antitoxin remedies. I spent most of my free time in the forest just wandering around, finding rare herbs and taking naps underneath the trees. Life was good. Whenever trouble arose I would just run and hide. Sometimes I would get away, but there were other times where I would just barely make it out alive. I was as the forest was protecting me. I never questioned it nor said anything to anyone out of fear of being mocked or made fun of, they would probably just think I’m insane and have me locked away.

It was just another normal day, when the army announced that the Orcs were terrorizing the outskirts of the forest and they were heading this direction. They said that Captain Malleus is going to battle this horde but needed more guides to help get regiments through the forest. I have helped Captain Malleus a few time in the past by finding him some criminals hiding in the forest, plus I love this forest dearly, the only option I had was to join. I knew the woods better than most. The regiment was about fifty men and a musician. No clue why the need a musician but he seemed to keep their spirits high and was pretty good at it. As long as if he didn’t give away our location I was fine with his playing. As the weeks went by we became closer to the enemy front line, everyone was one edge. I became friends with a couple of the soldiers, one which had given me a book with a four leaf clover in it. He said this book has brought him good luck throughout the years and had a feeling he wasn’t going to need it anymore given the circumstances. The book was a book discussing manners and etiquette. I don’t know if he was implying something or if he didn’t want his lucky book go to waste, rotting in a field when he dies. We thought we were a couple days away from the enemy front line, when all hell broke loose. We were smack dab in the middle of an orc pack. Due to miscalculations on the intel, we actually passed the battlefront and wound up walking right into them. There were too many of them and they had us by surprise. I can’t explain how I survived it was like there was a voice inside my head tell me to stay in the back of the group. When all the blood shed was happening the only thing I could think of was to get away. So I ran into the forest. It wasn’t that difficult know that I think back on it. It was as the forest opened itself up to me and closed behind me. The few orcs that chased after me seemed to be getting tangled up in vines and others got attacked by animals that seemed to come out of no where. Needless to say I was the only survivor. I waited a couple of days hiding in trees and bushes for the horde to pass. When everything felt safe I went back to where I left my group and was to only find dead bodies lying everywhere. I counted the bodies of the dead to see if there had maybe been some survivors. I was only able to count most of the regiment. Most bodies were torn to pieces others seemed to have been burned to a crisp. As far as I can tell I was the only survivor in the battle. If you want to call this massacre a battle that is.

The only thing I could do now was to head back to town. As I was hiking back, I began to realize that there was a good chance they are going to put the blame on me. I did nothing wrong tho. I was commissioned on to be a guide and guided them is what I did. They will not see it that way tho. I will be labeled a coward for not dieing with the soldiers or a traitor for leading them to their death. There is nothing left for me back in Bet Seder but ridicule or a noose. I stopped heading back towards town and started following the coast northwest. I eventually found a stream and a nice area in the forest were the was plenty of food. This place had a look to it like no other. It was peaceful, majestic, divine even. I felt as tho something wanted me to stay here. I had know where else to go so I will make this my home. As the months went by the plants started moving on their own, as if they were watching me, following me. I then realized that I could control a couple of these plants to do what I wanted it to do. Years went on like this. I was content with this lifestyle, but one day, it was as nature itself spoke to me. A voice from nowhere but everywhere was speaking to me. It explained to me what I am and why I can do the thing I do with the plants. It said I will learn from my future experiences to become more powerful, but for now the world is in trouble. It knew little of the danger, something was blocking its’ site from see the truth. The only information it had was that if it was not stopped the world could come to an end. That I must rid this evil and balance out the world. I need to travel to brandobia and speak with a duke that resides there. That this duke knows more about the evil that is coming about. I must first gather a small party so I have a better chance at defeating this powerful foe. It sent me to Bet Seder…….

It been about three years since I’ve been to Bet Seder. I can only hope that they do not remember my face. But atleast I have a strong contact in that town. It took about week to reach Bet Seder, faster than I should have made it. The only thing I could think of is that the forest deity helped me in my travels. The first thing I did was inquire about the whereabouts of Captain Malleus. I was pointed the direction of where he should be and to my surprise he was no longer in the Army, but instead a mercenary. I told him my situation and told me about a group that he has to leave for a bit. One in particular, a half-orc, the unappointed leader of that group. He said he would leave word with them that I will be tagging along with them as their guide to help them in their adventures. He also introduced me to a Bard before he parted ways, saying that the bard was also going to be tagging along with the half-orc. There is something very familiar about this Bard. I can place my finger on it tho. He kind of reminds me of the musician that accompanied me to the battlefront many years ago, but I can’t remember his face and plus there is no way he is the same one, I was the only survivor.

The depiction on the mural was hauntng. A dark figure, cloaked in arcane or evil energies and carrying a book of some kind, was blasting away whole swaths of snakelike lizard people and defeating a pharoah-like figure and making them kneel… then seemingly cursing them with an unlife. Hard to understand. The mural spread around the great cavernous room, hundreds of feet of pictoral storytelling. Centuries old, it seemed.

This temple, whatever it was once, was buried under a hundred feet of sand dunes… falling through the great dome and discovering horrors down here long forgotten was its own hazard, but the silver tablet that told the story on the mural in the great prayer chamber? That was the real chilling experience.

Once, it seemed, this city was some major trade route. Then some ruler came, a human of some kind maybe or a small giant, and subjugated the lizard people with an army of snake people. Then slavery and genocide. For a long time, actually. Then a dark figure comes. Human maybe. It slaughters thousands, both sides, in its judgment. It raises the dead. It punishes the guilty. It murders the innocent. It moves on like a storm across the sands, uncaring.

And a city dies. And then ages later, its forgotten.

Until a group of fools on a treasure hunt halfway across the world decide to flee a port city on the edge of the desert by trekking right across the great, sandy wasteland where none would follow and days into the journey… fall through the roof of the city’s central temple.

The half-orc was cursed several times, nearly died, dark forces came for him and had to retreat again… the cleric fought arcane naga in a great prayer room and nearly died… the only real treasures were mysteries. Mysteries about a dark man ages back that destroyed a city now forgotten to time.

There were other horrors in the desert… great things that they hid from and clever things they had to murder to keep the horses and camels safe. Those nights on the sands were dangerous, but less and less so now that the bard took charge of the camp and kept them safe at night.

The real dangers, now, having moved past the desert after weeks of travel and hazard, was the winter that has come and the mountains they have to cross. The high peaks are covered in snows and ice, and days of climbing and crawling their way up half-frozen paths later they emerged to look across the hundred miles of rocky spires and overgrown majesties.

The air, crisp and clean; the bite of the wind. The serenity of the great vallies and ridges. The green of the winter trees and the white of the snows.

And in the distance, a great tree—a thousand feet high if any—half frozen in a glacier nestled between two mountain peaks. The whole scene as out of place as anything one could imagine… they approached.

The great wood was hundreds of feet thick at the base with gnarled roots the size of small buildings jutting out of the rocks. The top was hardly visible with the clouds, the whole thing in a foggy obscurity. And when the druid spoke to it, and heard its lost and booming voice echo in his mind the words “help me”, there was naught to do but climb.

Ropes taught and knotted, kits out and hammers ready, the started their journey up days ago. In that time they found creatures both natural and unnatural, things that might be living in the great tree and things that were only there to destroy it. And now, hundreds of feet in the air, they risk exposure, elements, falling, starvation, and certain bloody death from evil flying things that make their home here… they climb. They watch.

When Mercy, the famed Brigand King of Zoa, was revealed to the world as B’sar Ebonflowerwood, near every member of the clan, as well as the vast extended family, descended on the free cities to stake their claims, curry their favors, and bask in the reflected glory of their half-elven antihero.

The Ebonflowerwoods swept in from Kalamar, joined by their more distant relatives – the Mistsingerwoods of the Fohkki mountains, the Blackenwood clan who roamed the wooded outskirts of Hobgoblin empires, and even those few left remaining of the Flintwood family, a line of elves still recuperating from their near-extinction in Brandobia at the hands of Vox the Profane. They came, they claimed, they helped spend Mercy’s vast fortune, though none were more eager to waste a career of plunder than the Brigand King’s own bastard children – six duplicitous brothers and four equally ruthless sisters who were all too quick to carve their father’s empire to pieces upon his “natural” death.

In time, the family splintered into ever greater schisms. Most of the Ebonflowerwoods split in two, and the houses of Ebonwood and Flowerwood warred over Zoa. The Winewoods, Echowoods and Eldersnowberrywoods are said to have all arose in a single night over an argument involving two coppers and a cup of mead. Over the course of the next seventy years, Mercy’s extended family came to number an incalculable amount of half-elves of varying shades of moral dubiousness. The outside world barely differentiated between the disparate tribes, and chose instead to file them all under one fitting name – The Bastards of Mercy. Collectively, a sprawling family of hangers-on and nobodies, once feared and respected under the name Ebonflowerwood, now a bickering brood of thugs and grifters.

Of all the Bastard lines, one family was viewed with the least regard of all – the Flashwoods. Though some of their number boasted strong blood ties to the Brigand King himself, they were granted little respect. During annual meetings, where the “great” houses would come together and argue over titles and rights, nobody deigned to give the Flashwoods a seat at the table. Not one of their number ever had the honor of even once holding the fabled Map of Mercy – the last of the Brigand King’s treasures, a treasure that passed between half-elves as they gambled, traded, or stole the artifact between and from each other over the course of the past half a century. For years, the Bastards would trade this map amongst themselves, and as every half-elf held it, they would boast of finally going to Brandobia and setting out to claim the legendary wealth that Mercy himself had discovered. Nobody ever did.

Flynn Flashwood was different. He was a nephew of Mercy himself … or the nephew of a cousin of Mercy’s … maybe. Either way, he was as brave as his dragon-slaying forbear ever was, and he understood that a legacy was meaningless if a man couldn’t live up to it. He saw his kin and was disgusted at what they had become. Degenerate cowards, not like the brave warrior B’Sar Ebonflowerwood had been – the man who witnessed a God die with his own eyes, who could raise the dead and punch through thick steel doors. Mercy was a legend to his people, but his people were drunks, braggarts, and cowards.

That’s what Flynn told himself as he stowed the map in his backpack, and prepared to leave Zoa under cover of night. These men who sneered at him for being little more than a Flashwood, and a useless musician at that, were not fit to hold it. Of course, cousin Fel’dwyn would be furious when he woke in the morning and found that his prize was missing, but Flynn would be far from the city by then.

It was his time now. His chance to do what nobody in his family ever dared to do. He would become a legend.

Odom took it well. Not a month away from Phandelver and a few weeks in Bet Seder and their little awkward family changes. Most of it being Malleus’s doing, of course. Time back in Bet Kalamar amongst old officers and officials had reminded the campaigner what rewards awaited the powerful. A percentage of the Wave Echo Cave, intelligence on hobgoblin movements, and a fair pile of money had bought him influence again in the right places. He would be bound by a certain honor to Odom and his travel partners, but eventually he would be free of those debts.

Bast and Natsu left with him. The former to pursue some dark purpose he kept largely to himself, the latter to take the damned book back to the monastery he came from at the peak of one of the Kakidela Mountains. Hidden, he said, safe. Malleus had no doubt that the time might come when he’d need to negotiate with the Warlock to take that book from that monastery—and he genuinely hoped Natsu wouldn’t be there that day.

The three left unceremoniously in the rain, on the road back to Bet Kalamar. A week later, letters started coming to the inn in Bet Seder. Odom read them carefully and wondered yet again why he took on this journey. The only ones left were him and Astrid, the two local kids from the streets of Bet Dodera. Hometown boy and girl. An orcish thief who was driven to right some deep wrongs in the world, an elvish mage who wanted to rule it. Every time he thought about walking away he was reminded that the only person in the world she knew was him, only person she might trust as well. And if he turned his back on their quest to reach that island on the other side of the world, she’d go it alone and might die or (worse) find whatever hoard of power there and consume herself and everything else in the fires that might burn from using it.

He needed a drink.

Sometimes, the only way to unshoulder the burden of keeping the elf from blowing up everything and herself was to have a drink of Maisie’s ale—and the longer he stayed in Bet Seder the more he liked it. He’d heard of half-orcs falling prey to drink in stories back home. The subject of ridicule and mockery. “Lookat that greenie, puking it up!” Har, har, har. The drunken mountain wines of the Orcs were a fabled thing—supposed to taste like licking a salt rock and sipping piss with an alcoholic burn. Odom didn’t know. He resented much of the stories about orcs. He especially resented the ones he’d learned are true.

But he saved Gudren. He saved Sildar. He’d saved that whole town. And he’d be a real piece of shit to walk away from saving her and the rest.

But a drink, first. At least here in Bet Seder, nobody looked at him like he was a monstrous sheep-fucker. A drink in peace. Maybe Malleus’s “associates” would show up tonight or tomorrow.

The hulking figure downstairs, however, was clearly neither of the two Captain Malleus Exile wrote Odom about expecting.

His description was of a pair of half-elves (“…better to culturally reign Astrid in, perhaps—both have served a time with my former regiment, though I do not know them particularly well I can attest to their competency as soldiers…”). This one wasn’t.

Tall. Even taller than Odom, who usually towered half a head or more above most humans. Bright eyes. Young. But with a face like an overbeaten leather shield. He expected the large, armored man to sound like Malleus… curt, booming, a little unpleasant… instead, the large man stood straight away, extended a hand, and greeted him warmly with a smile.

His manner was more scholar than anything. The fine grammar of a learned man, the colorful and easy language of someone used to orating. Brand, he said his name was. A divine of the Riftmaster sent to look after Astrid, now that she’d joined the church. Brand explained that she’d be with the Keyholders there (and that he was one himself, if only a novice) for a while and he’d learned a fair bit from the other priests about the coming adventure to the edge of the world Odom had taken up and intended to accompany them to help guide the young elvish evocateur in the ways of the great River.

Normally, Odom would have been hesitant to accept the pleasant, though imposing man… but there was ale on the table and the thought of having someone able to properly direct Astrid’s inevitable development that knew anything about magic was a relief.

By the fourth round, it sounded like the best of ideas.

By the sixth, both the human and half-orc were well and truly drunk.

Four days, lots of wine and conversation, and several small contests of skill later… Malleus’s reinforcements arrived.

As was his habit, Brand was the one to greet them—sitting at a table. Ale poured. Awaiting them patiently.

Both half-elves had “the look”. Lithe. Tall-ish. Fair. Though, to the trained eye (and Brand had spent most of his life preparing for the Great Journeys of the world—learning geography, languages, histories, cultures), the one with the plain leather and well-kept wooden shield was Kalamaran in origin and the one with the jaunty and dapper leather hat (broad rimmed, well-oiled good leather, just the thing for keeping the rains off) had the somewhat ruddier look of a Renaarian native.

Time would tell their stories, but for now, they were wet from the rains and sick of the road, and the first round was already poured.

……….

Brand left word with the temple, having faith in his fellows there that their divinations would be more than up to the task of reuniting Astrid with them on the trail. He booked passage across the sea, four days travel, to Shogga-pravaaz—the City of Giants. The journey had begun, and his life’s purpose had started. He fondled the little glass vial on the thong around his neck, hearing the tap of the tiny, mummified hand inside as he rocked it to and fro.

Saving the whole of the cosmos, at last. Bringing the universe back into balance. A thrill to be alive. On deck, he looked out across the waters and steeled himself for what was to come.

Elf Wizards…….* sigh *. I now hate Elf wizards. Their spells are just annoying but boy do they hurt. It’s going to take a good days worth of meditating to get over the mental disaster I just encountered. They are crafty I will give them that but why can’t they just fight head on. All this running away and setting traps just means they will die tired. They might know a lot about the cosmos but my lord they are the dumbest smart people I know. With a little more tactics and a lot less bling bling he would have been a great adversary. But what can I say, Elf Wizards………. * shakes head *

Even such as us, der be it true, we gots rules. Ain’t never, ain’t never in life taken nuffin’ from no one ain’t look like dey weren’t need it anyhow. Poor bugger come runnin’ trough da hills and lookin’ like he ain’t worf nuffin’ and carryin’ only da rags on his back and such, me and my boys ain’t touchin’ him. Poor bastard gots enuff problems, dat’s what I’m of a mind of.

Sensible. Dat’s the word. I’m a sensible robber and only ‘cause der ain’t no work to be had in da hills. Never were, ‘cept runnin’ from Arcs. And dey run faster.

Why any fucker or fucker or fucker would be out in dese hills, ain’t no secret. Only two suches out here. Only two. We gots Arcs—big ole green bastards what love fuckin’ sheep and killing people and playin’ dat mountain clan music wit’ noise and rancor. We gots dat. And den we gots dat elfin fuck on da hill up north a ways. No, don’t know his name, sire sir… ain’t never been invited to dinner or nuffin’.

But dat fucker is famous in the hills. Him and his friends or fam or whatever dey are. Womens? Mens? I hear dere kind goes all ways and it ain’t my way, but nobody never asked me nuffin’ about dat.

Dey at da castle. Dey make lights and fearsome noise and such. All sounds like what a howler monkey gibberin’ at da bottom of a well might sound like—all floaty and weirdly. But dey dance to it like it were a bawdy tune on a good ole fashioned six string lute in a tavern after a drought. Elfin, do I say you mind, are weird damn creatures. All wearin’ gaudy lookin’ finery and rings and such. Here. In da hills.

Wit little men and whatnot followin’ ‘em around and servin’ derethirst or whatnot. I seent ’em put fine wine (in bottles, sire sir, bottles) on da heads of dem little men and whatnot and have ’em go out fifty pace and den just spend afternoons shootin little lights at ’em. Bust a bottle. Soak a little fucker thing. Laugh.

What da hell sense is dat?

Its like when my cousin got his da’s farm when we was youngerns. Sold it to da first fancy man what come to ask on it, took da gold and coin and started talkin’ fine and dressin’ fine and it was all “roast chicken from dat inn” dis and “lookat my new necklass, Cord” dat. Ugly fuckin’ necklass, too.

Dey shoulda never given dat fuck money.

But dey ain’t ask me, so it is.

Elfin. Weird damn creatures.

But da strangers came. Like a shot in da night and like an arrows flyin’ wit’ purpose. Da’ big man caught me and my boys doing a little robbin’ (no harm, no foulin’). Told us off, and let us go—I suspect he’s one of dem heros I hear about from da city. All pretty and feirce. Shiny sword and servants to carry his stuff and a woman to warm his tent. I’ll tell ya fine, he let us go wit a warnin’ and we took it.

But next day I saw dem track and trail—dey don’t seem to care about leavin’ one. Scary dat.

Dey went right to dat elfin castle.

Right dere, say it.

Me and Cobb watched from da Bastard Hill, right over dere, sire sir. Right dere.

Went right in, like dey was King Adoku hisself. Proud as you like.

Right up. And goes in. And about twenty minutes later, I fink or so, dat big tower dere… no, it WAS dere, sir… dat rubble… yeah. Dat pile of stone. It starts comin’ down! Boom! den a minute later BOOM! a little more. Den BOOOOOOM, nearly all done. Den a great fuckin’ crash and the whole fuckin’ tower just a pile o’ rocs. True, I say it true.

Pile o’ rocks.

I’ve pissed longer den it took for dat to come down.

Fuckin’est damn sight—’scuse me fine, sir.

Den dey just come strollin’ out, blastin’ hell and fire and lights and colors all behind ‘em like casual. Like dey were wavin’ friends away, but blastin’ em with fire and hell instead of wavin’. All casual. Like nuffin’. Dey looked like dey been stuffed in a sack and beat half-to-death against a tree like ya’ do with a snake on da farm… but, dey just strolled out to da courtyeard and would sit a while and walk back inside and light da place right up and den come out and someone else would go in.

Da whole time, dat whole hour more and more of da castle fallin’ apart like a crumblin’ loaf of hard cake.

Den, dey turned, and walked right off.

An I tell ya’, I walked da’ other fuckin’ way. Me and Cobb. Dey spared my shit life once, I don’t tempt no fate twice, and I say it true.

Free of ’em, sire sir.

Free.

FREeeeeee?

Hang on… hang on a minute… I know a spot of the Kalamaran… “THReeeeee”?

“THReee” of ‘em. Big man, pale lady, big fuckin’ damn creature of one? No idea. Is dat what merfolk look like? Or mebbe is dat a demon? Dunno. Scaley, brownish. Ain’t wearin’ no shirt, I don’t know dat its a man at all.

Dem, yessir. Just dem.

Any free fuckers who can walk into an elfin castle where an elfin lord or whatever has made his home for as many generations as my family can remember, wit his whole crew o’ bastards wit him… and bring da entire place down to rubble in da span of about an hour?

Dey can have it. Whatever dey want. Cord and his boys ain’t got no business wit dem.

Dey went dat way, yessir. City-wise.

Iffin’ ya could let me go, as a kindness, dat would be grateful. I have a wife, sire si—what do ya’ mean “dead”? I’m talkin’ fresh as can be. True, I don’t feel in pain after dat sword… dead?

Den how—?

The body twitched on the ground as the armored figure took his hand away from its head and stood. Cord’s soul would move on. He’d know rest, now. Holding his shade here made her queasy, and she was grateful the plate armor and helm hid that disgust—her companions didn’t need to know how little she liked doing that.

But the information was helpful. The old robber was watchful and clever, she’d see some of her brothers and sisters did right by his wife. A few coins, maybe a place in one of the temples inland.

Sonya walked back to the group.

“Darling girl. What did he tell you?”—dreadful as the weather was, Viscount Echai’s voice was rich and warm—as though the rain and storms were a joke and he would always find them funny.

“Captain Malleus. The Dragonborn. Astrid Firekin. Just them. He never saw the other two”, her voice was slow and heavy. She’d castigate herself over killing Cobb and Cord for weeks, it was a heavy price to pay, but she’d pledged her service to the Viscount and he never left witnesses to his investigations where he could help it.

The Viscount closed his eyes and raised his head to let the light rains splash down his narrow, pointed face. Dreamily. In contemplation. Of what? Sonya never knew. But she’d seem him think like this before and knew to be patient.

The others were by the horses, down the hill.

After a few minutes, which stretched out like an eternity in the silence, he shivered and shook his head—brushing away the thoughts that consumed him for those moments and returning to the now and the near.

The man in the stone room stood over the rotting oaken table, listening to the sound of the wind through the bars of the window ten feet over his head. His peace was gone. This place, his place, of calm was uncalm and the wrongness of that made him mad. The smells of rotted food and human waste choked away any actual vermin. The dirty rushes covered most of the tiny cell, and the man looked as though he had slept in his filth for days. The only well-cared for thing in sight was the iron-banded door and its very well kept lock.

The papers on the table told small stories, often in only a few words, but led to a larger picture. The cave is lost. The adventurers are alive. And his servants, both those who knew of their patron and those far removed from him, were dead or scattered. He was close, he’d been so very close.

The man in the stone room crumpled the latest note, sent from a diligent young Kargi scout who obeyed his orders and stayed out of the fighting: the two subjects were on the move with their two companions, the human was nowhere to be found. Malleus. The man in the stone room had met him, before, when Malleus had been somewhat younger and full of promise for the Emperor’s Own. The man in the stone room did not know him, and their meeting was brief—the passing nod and smile of an important man greeting a rolling ocean of less important men ceremoniously. Like a baker acknowledges a hoard of customers, like an officer acknowledges new conscripts.

The man in the stone room did not know Malleus. But he knew his type. No doubt, the officer would return to his party—his type always did. It was important that he do so, as well, as none of the others were suitable to his plans. Certainly not the two he’d carefully selected for his great plan.

Lightening flashed and the wind picked up—the howling of the storm outside was music of a fierce era. The man in the stone room began crumpling papers on the table one by one—giving them a last look.

“The cursed one and the woman still live, despite our ambush—precautions should be taken, we are fairly sure she does not sleep”… hardly a revelation, elves don’t sleep, but he wouldn’t rob the ignorant their little discoveries (certainly not if they’re a highly trained company of soldiers from the Young Kingdoms—and hobgoblins to boot). They failed, and they’ll likely see their commander murdered for the failure—the man in the stone room made a mental note to ask politely about new leadership in the coming weeks.

“Grash’s son leads them, he fights without honor, his blood is tainted by his lowly birth though we have witnessed him having little love for his people”… the orc. Or sil-orc, or whatever they’re called. The man in the stone room had never liked orcs, rare as they are they hardly ever came down from their hills and mountains and those that did were unwashed brutish deviants. Worthless. Despite Captain Kalgesh’s warnings, he was of little consequence. Orcs. They can’t even read.

“The dragon nearly had me, master. I dispatched the thief and the Nezzar played his part well as the Spider, but things turned too dangerous. I had to run to tell you, you are my most important task—but the dragon was fast. I believe he is suspecting of what I am. I escaped, finally, but only through guile. He is dangerous. I will go to Bet Seder, I have heard they will be going there soon. I will watch, but not engage unless you wish it”… ah, V. The man in the stone room loved her. Was repulsed by her, but loved her. She was his most able agent, and yet one he feared the most. The day she revealed herself to him, to help him with his grand design, she was a miracle from the Gods themselves. Timely. Just what was needed. But, he never forgot… she appeared. She wasn’t found. What she knew? He often worried about where her true motives were.

The last notes were from his agents or their assets in Phandelver. The Red Cloaks were all dead—good riddance, they’d not the wit to work for him when offered anyway and he wanted them gone for phase two of the plan. The dwarf, Gunderen or Goodren and Sildar were hard at work restoring the cave and the mine—a suitable turn of events, but nobody had anticipated the Forge of Spells would have been so broken and weak. It was a long shot, taking that cave, but now with so many eyes on it—restoring it to its former glory would help but it would all take too much time.

And time was growing short.

The man in the stone room crumpled the last paper and breathed deeply of the stink and the rot. His eyes fluttered and he was lost in thought—time was short. Time was short.

The orc primitive. The elf bitch. The fallen noble. The cursed. The dragon.

He needed two of them, if his studies had been right, if V’s book was right and his sage’s own research wrong then he needed only one of them. The other was insurance. The rest… he couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t be useful. Death later, but profit now.

The man in the stone room began pacing. The cold slap of his naked feet on dry stone… then the wet splatter of his naked feet in a pool of excrement. Over and over. Around and around the tiny room.

They murdered a dragon. No small feat. V’s book says he only needs the one. His viziers tell him that the tales of the Conqueror insist on two. But, his own caution thought it necessary to bring all of them to bear. How else does one kill a king, if not by overdoing the gods-loving shit out of it?

Lightening crashed and he stopped his march. His head felt clearer, his path made more sense. Watch. Wait. Give them a reason.

They were small, ungodly people. And he could use that.

The man in the stone room moved to the great door and banged twice. A hatch opened level with his own face and a meaty, pink-faced man stared back through it from the outside.

“I am done”, said the man in the stone room.

“Uh-yah… yess’msir… yess’msir yer grace”, said the pink-faced man as he quickly unlocked the door and collapsed to his knees, head bowed and ratty cap in his hands.

“Have them clean everything, Yawl. How long has it been this time?”

“Uh-ym… not as long as it all, yer grace. I did check you sleepin’ last week, mebbe. So…”, the pink-faced man scrunched his face tight in sums, “ten or so days?”

“Thank you, Yawl”, the man from the stone room said as he walked away up through the tunnels and past the empty cells into the light of torches and out of the dungeons.

A half-retinue of castle guards escorted the naked, dirty man to a suite of rooms—common but clean—and there a handful of girls no older than seven or eight helped him bath and oiled his hair and filed his nails and gave him sweet oils and light sandals and a resplendent doublet and breeches and hose.

At last, an old man arrived and brought a golden crown out of a velvet bag—as though the weight of the world was in his hands—and shakily placed it on the man from the stone room’s brow.

“Your council awaits you, your highness”, said the old man with a hint of concern.

“Thank you, Bert. Well, let’s off then”, he sparkled a smile as he stood, “…we’ve a war to win.”

Bast

The day was unusually muggy. The rain was promising to cool it down, but as of now, the moisture hung in the air and made it hard to breathe. The trail back to Phandalin was decent enough. It did get better the closer they got to town. This was a small comfort, and Bast was used to comfort. He was used to Inn’s and the beds of wagons. This was something new. He was constantly being told to shush, or being looked at angrily for bringing along good food. By the gods and the others this group was intriguing.

Bast was walking along the trail thinking to himself about the events of the last week. Thinking was the wrong word. More like discussing the events of the last week. Bast was talking to it again, and realized that more than one of them was looking at him strangely. He walked a little further up the trail for some privacy and continued his thought process. “These people are strange.” “Some of them bind themselves so tightly to these “laws” that they serve.” “These laws made by men.” “Why would one willingly slave himself away to man-made power?” “These laws mean NOTHING, and yet they willingly give their power away to them.” “I must find out why!”

Bast was humming to himself as he walked along behind the group. He seemed amused, as he always did. He was watching the Orc man carefully. Out of all of them, this man seemed the most transparent. The most well-meaning. He took care of those he cared about, and went out of his way to ease some of the more heated debates this group was prone to. This would be needed greatly. More heated debates were going to happen. With this group, it was as sure as the setting sun.

The others were walking along the trail as well, and no one was talking. Natsu was walking by himself, like he always did. The big dragonborn was as grumpy as he was stoic. Nothing was happy with that one. Nothing seemed good enough. Save his life, and he will talk to you about how you did it wrong. “There is a better way Bast, and all that nonsense!” “HA! There is no way but the one you choose Mr. Dragon man.” Is what he would have said, if he thought it would do any good. This one, however, he could relate to somewhat. Perfection was a worthy goal, and if it took following strict protocols to get there, then who was Bast to stand in the way. Bast too was looking for something like perfection.

The elf girl was easy. She didn’t like Bast. Hell she doesn’t like anyone in this party. Her actions showed that clearly. She was young, and loved herself. Bast could have sworn that every thought that ran through that head of hers was of Astrid. She was selfish, rude, and completely caught up in becoming more powerful. On three separate occasions, she almost killed the entire group. “She will get herself killed soon. Either that or she would watch as we all died and then pull her black cloak up and walk away quietly snickering to herself about what fools we all were.” Astrid was staring at him again. He would talk with her when the time was right. He would ask her but one question. “If your goal is power, do you truly think you can attain this on your own?”

Then there was Malleus. The man who swore his life to Bast for nothing! This man was truly an enigma. He followed his own laws, and seemed to come up with them on the spot. One moment he was praising Bast for his quick thinking, and the way he disposed of some goblins, and the very next he was scolding him for killing men that would have surely done the same. “I do not understand this one.” Bast thought to himself. There is a story about this man. A story that he bribed his officers to see which ones were on the take. He then killed these men, because they broke the law. This is hypocrisy. How can it be that he can follow his laws one minute and then break them the next? This man is dangerous!

There was no malice in these thoughts. Bast was almost incapable of anger and resentment. There was only wonder, and intrigue. There was a mystery here. There were things to learn. “Eblis I will learn three new things for you. When we speak again I will give you these gifts.” As the day got shorter, and the rain finally started, Bast grinned wide and pulled out his flute. It was time to put thoughts away. It was time for music!

He stepped out of his tent to survey the town, dimly lit by the grey morning sky. He swept some strands of white hair from his eyes, and watched the early morning traffic with quiet contempt. Farmers beginning another day of backbreaking labor. Miners bustling into town with their latest pebbles and baubles. An old woman beating at some cloth for some tawdry purpose. All of them waking up at the same time, performing the same tasks, living the same pointless, dull, dreary little lives.

Malleus Exile wondered what it was like to be so normal. So mundane. So … so very meaningless.

The former military captain raised a black-gloved hand, flexed his fingers, listened to the satisfying creak of leather-on-leather. Subtly, quietly, he delivered a surge of arcane energy through his arm, and watched as the tendrils of electric light crackled in his palm, writhing and snapping, casting an eerie blue glow around him. Such a small light show was nothing, and yet with this subtle handful of energy, Malleus could slay every single peon in his immediate vicinity.

He closed his hand. The lightning disappeared. Malleus smiled.

So ordinary. The smallfolk wandering and babbling before him were so very, very ordinary. He wondered why men and women possessed of extraordinary ability would waste their energies on such useless creatures. Odom, the Orcish vagabond, as well as Natsu and Bast, seemed to put themselves at risk to help the weak and the rudderless. Why? Why would individuals so special, so above the common stock, wager their incredible and precious lives against those of cattle? Between them all, they could take this town, rule these people, and put them to some sort of use. Even better, they could leave this place and win glory, fame, or influence in places more rewarding than this. Instead, they choose to fetter themselves, to deny their power over the terminally powerless. Such a waste of potential.

Malleus smiled darkly to himself. Hypocrite, he thought. Judging these men for their decisions, while he was no better. The good captain had pledged his life to these wayward heroes, and in doing so, bound himself by their decisions. Among them all, it was perhaps the elf mage who refused to deny herself. She was selfish, and impulsive, and highly unpredictable. But she, unlike him, seemed to feel free to pursue her desires. It was most interesting. Perhaps he had more to learn from this woman than he’d originally considered.

Her power was unlike anything he’d seen. Next to her, his own arcane endeavors were as parlor tricks. She could bring a kingdom to her knees one day, or even rule her very own. That would be most interesting. Most interesting indeed. What kind of reign would that be, and what place would Malleus have in such a realm? Such intriguing ideas.

His companions approached from the inn. Malleus had elected to set up an independent camp , suspicious of recent behavior from the inn’s proprietors. He preferred it anyway. He could build a bed from sticks and leaves that were more comfortable than any bed he’d slept in, and the rain beating on his tent at night was more soothing than any hearth fire. Reminded him of the great campaigns, marching with the Sons of Scorn. A time of purpose, of great deeds … and yet, looking back, Malleus could only ruminate on how very ordinary he, himself, had been in those days.

Well, that was a long time ago.

Malleus saluted his partners as they approached. He stood rigidly in his dark green splintmail, resplendent with bleak beauty and interwoven with silks of near-black. His armor was polished to perfection, his silver sword and battleaxe, bound to him through arcane rituals, glinted with a mirror-sheen on his back. He looked impeccable. He WAS impeccable.

They were not beautiful or wiley. They lumbered up to the castle like a tired marching band, blaring the entire way and as careful as children in a mud-puddle at play. I hid and they could not see me, the half-orc came the closest but even his attention was on the prize in front of them.

Cragmaw.

An old, broken thing—much like me. Well past our primes, well past any care. The only things that inhabit either of us are worms and vermin. The only reason we still exist is because someone finds us too useful to destroy. I am tired, but it doesn’t matter.

That is a refrain I know too well.

They broached the door and killed the little ones and prided themselves on their martial valor. The truth is, they’ve only faced their lessers. Squabbling goblins and the low-interests of their masters. They still have no clue what forces move these pieces into play. They have never had to fear for their lives. They will, and it will shock them.

I would shock them, but my master bid I stay back. Stay in the shadows. Watch.

They murder the unwitting goblins, they murder their chiefs, they murder their way through the castle and think themselves wise and bold and heroic—they burn paper puppets and think themselves conquerors. In my day, I could have ended all of them. I have made gods move for me. I was a champion….

…I am tired, but it doesn’t matter.

Our negotiations with Kal-Mak-Tiragi go slowly, but progress is made daily. Soon, we will have a new nation to call home and a new hope for the future.

Well, others will have hope—I will have service. And in that, I am as content as I am allowed. So, I watch. and I task. I remove the pieces from the board quietly. We learned our lesson a long time ago about advertising our presence. Several are already dead, it will be weeks or months before anyone finds out. Such is our way now. Such is our way.

I followed them back to Phandalin. I followed them all around the town. A dark guardian angel over their shoulders, I am many and yet only one. I am everywhere, but only here. It confuses me and my master assures me that thinking on it will only drive me mad. It is exhausting when I must be more than one, I am tired—but, it doesn’t matter.

I must continue. I follow them North. I follow them as they follow the dwarf’s map. They are closing on the Wave Echo Cave. They are living their destiny and I remember how sweet it was to live and thrive as they are. I am jealous. I hate them, and I suppose love them. I hope they win. Losing only brings this…

…this, whatever this is.

This gray.

The cave is dangerous. It lies. It is home to madness. It is a window—a bare peak—into mysteries Tellene has no real knowledge of. Some may die. Surely, some may die.

by Ronnie

“Danger- The undead live here” This is the first thing we see when arriving to Thundertree. It seems to be a ghost town. The whole reason we came to this town was to escort this family we rescued from the mansion to their home, but there doesn’t seem to be a house livable anywhere in this town. I have an uneasy feeling about this town. Each house is abandoned and some you can’t even consider a house, just walls. The streets are empty, nothing but spiderwebs cover the road. Where there are giant webs, there are giant spiders.

I didn’t see most the fight due to they wrapped me in their web from afar. As soon as I was able to escape the webbing my party already took care of the giant spiders. As we got closer to the middle of town the family we escorted suddenly started walking up to the top of a hill with a tower. When we got to the top there was a creature there that I have never seen before. I have only heard stories and rumors of these creatures. I have this intense urge to kill this creature.

Why do I feel this way?

Is this creature doing this to me?

Is he feeling the same way?

I will hear the creature out. I will see what it wants.

Why is he asking for our loyalty? He should know I would never bow before this monster. It keeps talking. It wants blood to show our allegiance to it. It will get none of my blood. He is not worthy of this blood. Why is Bast going along with what it asks? We must kill this monster now!

I can’t take this any longer. His voice is eating away at me. My hatred for this monster is becoming uncontrollable. He must be dealt with. This evil must not be allowed to roam this land any longer. His words are like poison. All they do is confuse and corrupt the ones unfortunate to hear. I don’t know if I will have any assistance in fighting this dragon but I can not control myself any longer.

Before I was able to attack, Bast got the jump on the monster. He lured it in with what it wanted to hear. After Bast attacked the rest of my party joined as though they some how knew bast was going to attack. I am glad I am not going to be alone in this battle for it would have been my last. Ultimately it’s own ego was the reason why we were able to defeat it. I stared into this dragons eye until it took its final breath. Xinatrux I believe is what it said it’s name was in draconic or venomfang in a more well known language. This dragon will not be forgotten.

I feel empty inside me now. I know it was a good thing to remove this evil from the world but it was the first contact I had with something that was like me.

Are there more like this one out there? If so I must find them. I need answers on why I am hated by something I resemble and why I hated this green dragon so intensely. This one seemed to be just a baby. I wonder if the adult dragons will be this easy to kill. Either way, I can not allow this evil to reside on this planet anymore. If they want blood then I shall give them blood.

by Jeff

The old man calmly continued his lecture as he fumbled with making a fire. “Do you know what happens when you mix bat guano, and sulfur?” The tiefling child was staring at something over the old man’s left shoulder. “Bastus, do not talk to that thing now!” “I am trying to teach you something of the world!” He hated the name Bastus. He didn’t quite hate it as much as his real name, but that would be forgotten along with everything else that happened the night the old man found him, or so said the old man. “No sir I do not know what would happen if these things were mixed.” “Good,” shouted the old man, his face beaming! “Do you want to know?” Bast shook his head yes, and his eyes lit up. The old man walked over to a table, and picked up something that looked like yellow powder, and a ball of mud. He then went to the firepit and said something under his breath. For a brief second Bast saw only shadows as a bright concussive light shot forth from the pit. A roar that lasted so much longer than necessary shook the child to his core, and then it was gone. Just like that a fire roared in the pit, and the old man was jumping back, trying to put out his robes that were smoldering. “This is magic of the learned Bastus.” “This is what you will see when people read books, and scrolls. This is the work of science, learning, and reason.” “This is magic that you will never use.” “It is simple, and it is tame.” “It is a formula, an equation to be worked out.” The child stared up at the old man in wonder. “Do not look at me like that boy, I did nothing but put ingredients together and say a word.” The old man had a habit of swatting flies away from his face that were never there. “Lessons are done for today, go out and learn three new things. Tonight you will tell me what you learned.”

“Do you remember what I told you when you first came to be with me?” Bast shook his head yes, and stood up. He was anxious to go back out and explore the rest of the mountain, and he was not going to recite the words again. “Don’t go too far today Bastus, there is a storm coming,” the old man said as he sat back in his chair. With that the young child was out of the homely cave and into the sunlight again. He looked back one last time and saw the old man sitting in his chair, a smile slowly spreading on his face as he roasted his toes on the fire.

Bast hopped up along the rocks like he knew them well. He had to be careful, but it shouldn’t be too difficult, especially with its help. It liked to help Bast. It liked to show him things. It was tricky sometimes, reasoning with it. It had a weird sense of logic. Like a puzzle. He learned to use it, but first he had to learn what it was saying. He was still figuring that part out, but every day he understood more and more of its insane language. He found that he could ask it to show him the minds of animals. He found that it showed him things he may not want to see. Powerful things to come. Bast couldn’t contain himself anymore, and he smiled brightly as the thing whispered into his ear. He knew his time would come in just a few short years, and this “magic” the old man showed him seemed like nothing more than mixing powders and looking stern. “No, that was not for him.” He needed to bring forth his own magic, and he knew how could get answers to that.

The mouth of the cave was not really a mouth at all. More like a small slit in a rockfall. Bast knew that there was a cave under there, but getting to it was going to be tricky. He shuffled up along the rocks and wound his way up to where the small opening was. There was no wildlife here. To anyone else this may have seemed strange. No squirrels, or marmots on the rocks barking at his approach. No birds in the air to whistle warnings. Not even bugs would come within eyesight of this place. Bast was told this was an old place, a place of death and decay.

There was steam rising from the opening. Steam that stunk of death and rot. As he moved closer, there was a thought that kept coming to the forefront of his mind. At first it was a whisper, barely audible over the hum of normal thoughts. As he inched closer to the mouth of that cave, however, the whispers grew. Something unnatural was making this happen, and Bast intended to at least find out what it was. He approached carefully and made sure that he had solid footing. He was sure that he had mentally mapped this area well, and knew which rocks to step on, and which ones to avoid. The rockfall came down the mountain, like they all do. A big mess of granite that piled up around the foot of the mountain. He worked his way closer, and had to stop twice to take a rest. The cave was very close now. All he had to do was squeeze through this last rock, and he would be at the opening. Opening is a strong word. The mouth of this cave was under a rockfall, and was little more than a two foot wide slit that ran from higher up the mountainside, down to the ground.

As Bast made his way closer, he felt a pull on his clothing. He couldn’t be sure, but the whispers in his mind were getting louder. More chaotic. They were drowning his mind with thoughts of death and other things. It could not help him here, he realized. Either it could not, or it would not. He could literally feel it being drowned out by the cacophonous chorus of whispers in his mind. The first thing into the cave was his right shoulder. He wanted to go back to the safety of his cave, but it was too late for that. He had already set his mind to this, and he intended to find answers, or die trying. As this new thought spread into his mind, he felt a tug on his right hand. He let out a gasp and his eyes went wide. He tried to pull his hand back, but something was gripping it. Pulling it. He let out a shriek of terror, but screaming did nothing to help with the adrenaline soaked madness of panic. As he was pulled into the cave, the last thought he had before the world went black was of the old man sitting in the cave roasting his toes saying “Don’t go too far today Bastus, there is a storm coming.”

by Flannel

I am the newest Power amongst the Powers. The mechanisms that drive this pale, pretty world have turned and clinked and worked in their magical symphony to birth the rarest and most awesome being it has any words or poetry for—Me.

Me.

The forests and streams and sun and stars and winds and howling things and snarling things and chittering things and silent standing briars and cold stoic stones all live their lives and give their essence to Me.

I hear their prayers in their kind. I deem them good.

The towers bend and droop lower and lower each year as supplication to My righteous benevolence. They live on, howling in the storms that come, because I give them that life. It is my gift. This playground is home. Home to God.

But, My great groaning garden is not without weeds. Evil creatures come. Horrid, violent, blind little creatures have come—and in My judgment I have found them undeserving of this paradise. My paradise. I have given them to My subjects and My most loyal followers. Sometimes to the spiders, My finest soldiers. Sometimes to the blights, My eyes and ears. Sometimes to the elements, My lovers the thunder and the rain and the lightening and the drought and the tempest and the floods—My many consorts that caress Me with their trials and bid Me endure their passion.

And I do.

I love them and their harshness loves Me.

And the horrid things die, for they are not Gods. They cannot know the love, they cannot survive the divine punishment My paramours deliver. The Great Sun has burned them. The Bold Winter has frozen them. The world itself is My wife and husband and the small things cannot survive his/her jealousy.

I sleep and dream. I dream. I dream.

My dreams are green. They are green. And I bring them to the small creatures of the world, I bring them my gospel—and it is blood and decay. It is beautiful, and they pluck out their eyes for that beauty.

I sleep.

I… wake.

Something has come to My garden. Some new small thing… things. They come. I see them. I see them. I smell them. I lay. I wait. I will bring them My being. They will fall prostrate. They will cry and weep and I will love them. And their pain will prove their loyalty.

They come.

They come.

I am excited. I cannot know the awe they will feel when they realize they have entered into the lands of God and found Him here to bless and hate and love them.

They come.

Hello.

Hello, small creatures.

One of them is like so many of the others. It is female. It smells afraid. It is good that it is. But it speaks and I hate its words, it speaks My tongue badly and the words of Gods are not fit for the mouth of elves. It is displeasing me. I will show the rest the power in My hand, I will eat her delicate hands firs—…

…but wait…

…oh, teasing winds you have brought an other! An other! An other to My paradise! It smells eager. Its eagerness is pleasing and I am aroused by its want. It was power, it wants patronage—it wants God. To serve and love and be one with My great works. I am pleased. So pleased. It… he… he will know my terror and pain and love and hate and joy and gifts and curses an—…

…a bastard with them? A bastard! A bastard! A bastard! A bastard! I will only kill it. It deserves My hatred. It is of the line of Great Beasts! It is unworthy of My heaven and undeserving even of the limbo outside its walls! But, quiet… the other… friends, perhaps? No matter, I am a benevolent God and will not make My other endure the death and screams of his friend.

I will kill the bastard tonight and spare My other that pain. And bring him new pains to sup on. Forever. And ever. Always. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Bleed for Me other. Oh, bleed! And bleed the rest! Yes! You are My prophet, you will bring My greatness to all that walk and crawl and fly and you will bring them pain and love. You will bring Me humble citizens for My heaven.

The blood is Mine. And Mine. And Mine.

No!

…

NO!

…

NO! NONONONO!

Why? Why betray Me? Our ages together and you play the part of My nemesis!? Together over these centuries and eons! I am your God! Your God! Your God!

The skulking one. The liar. I vomit My children upon him and he screams. He is terrified and his death will be as green as My dreams. Flee and run!

I will cleanse My paradise of your treachery! And other will see his friends die. And I smell their fear! It is strong and thick and musky.

I take no pleasure in your deaths, little traitors. None! It is a great judgment I bestow on you and you will thank Me with your dying breathes.

Stop!

Stop IT!

I feel My own blood wash down from a sickly hole in My chest… I am in pain. I am in pain. I am bleeding.

by Flannel

So, let me introduce some story elements of the Lost Mines of Phandelver and give a commentary on how the game played and areas we really liked and areas we felt something wasn’t quite right. There might be a spoiler or two in this post.

First, I want everyone playing out there to know that the Starter Set contents are phenomenal. Art and booklets and even the pre-mades (despite our playing created characters instead of using the ones in the box)… all high quality and well done. We changed some elements of the module to fit our game: (1) rather than this happening in Neverwinter in Faerun, this is all happening in Dodera in Kalamar; and (2) in order to really use this as the kickoff to a larger story past level 5, several elements have been altered to lead up to a great international conflict with the hobgoblin nations of the world. So, think of this as less “a party of heroes rides into town and fix things”—as the adventure is written—and more “a party of heroes rides into town and, while fixing things, see the coming storm”.

First thing to note is that the major locations and NPC’s of Phandalin are very accessible—as a GM one wants to have flavorful NPCs that don’t feel like they’re simply quest-bots and I found it easy to spin up personalities and objectives for them based on the notes in the module. I could have my governess of the Blue Lions (middle-aged and elegant, perhaps too much so for this small mining town) be taken and flattered by the ex-Kalamaran Officer and more interested in his company (and offering easy trade to keep him around all afternoon). I could have the pragmatic provisioner appeal to the Lawful characters that he couldn’t possibly be responsible for paying them, as he paid the party’s employer in full for delivery of the goods they had brought with them from the capitol—and watch those two (one resigned to being stiffed, one absolutely pissed) perfectly play Lawful by simply going with it to the consternation and argument (heated) of the chaotic other three party members.

The elf wizard, to her great RPing, tried pocketing a few coins from the Shrine of Luck and got herself minorly cursed for it—a scene that served well to provide her with Inspiration (we’ll come back to that) for playing her background and flaws well… as a street urchin, back when she was a girl, she just had that habit of eyeballing a room for valuables and taking things when she could. Old habits die hard. Ultimately, the town felt alive enough to give everyone things to do and reasons to split up. Our rogue tried making contact (totally independant of the module) with any thieves or gangs in the village, being that he was from a large city with an established (if secretive) guild and “the brotherhood” certainly might help them find that missing dwarf that owed them money. He finds the Redbrands and the street altercation was needless and violent and short—they just didn’t realize how fast the big green bastard was until one of them died.

So with everyone split up, hearing about how oppressive this gang of red cloaked thieves were from different sources, and Odom having experienced it first hand, they went to the hideout on the hill for their first proper dungeon crawl of this game (the goblin hideout was small and technically a crawl, but as the starter dungeon it really felt like a moment for flavor and easing into the system habits than a real hazardous delving).

We did run into several places where rules clarifications were hard. Searching for traps and hidden doors, while the main materials in the Basic Rules give the impression that one is using Investigation (hidden objects), the Starter Set says Perception. That led to the rogue being a little frustrated as he investigates like a champ (passive score of 17—that’s auto-finding things when he’s in a scene going over, carefully, everything immediately around him), but percieves no better than the rest of the party (12). We house-ruled that investigation made more sense (for searching), and things picked back up and our search-specialized rogue was back to disabling the few traps that were there to find and noticing hidden doors and loot everywhere.

Very quickly, really since the Cragmaw Hideout cave on the road, these players have figured out that terrain matters, cover rules, and surprise works. They approached every door carefully, set some ambush rules, listened for voices, and kicked doors in only to get the one round drop on anything in that room. It was enormously effective. Keep that in mind for your games, if you—as a GM—aren’t paying attention to “how much noise is the party making, would I give my monsters in the other room a chance to be even lightly warned—thus not surprised?” then you might well have situations where the party is attacking up to twice before you get to do anything and that’s going to make encounters maybe too easy too often.

As it stands, They took out most things in the dungeon with minimal pain. A few people had to content with those Death Rolls when you get to 0 hp, but nobody came anywhere near as close to dying as the last game where Malleus took too many arrows and went down nearly all the way (0 hp and failed death rolls), and Odom did much the same (although we found that he would have had one more round on his feet at 1 hp as per the Half-Orc racial ability to stay at 1 hp that first time you’re taken below it—everyone should be careful not to forget any racial attributes, its easy to think “old D&D” and forget that many of the races have very useful and strong abilities at their disposal).

Their two big story-driving finishes were (1) ignoring that rat in the wizard’s study (despite me mentioning it , casually, twice) and finding the wizard gone—though his notes left while he rushed out in a hurry. They uncovered his alliance with the Black Spider, hints of a hobgoblin conspiracy afoot, and his direction of these Redbrand bastards. They found his escape tunnel and deduced he’d run just moments before—their proof was seeing that rat take off up the stairs afterward and the rogue killing it with thrown dart (quickly) only for it to vanish, which our warlock figured out (Arcane) meant it must have been a familiar and must have been listening to them the whole time and warning its master. SO CLOSE.

And, (2) freeing the woman, her daughter, and son from the cages. That was the last thing they did (having found the secret door in the cistern room at the beginning and walked to the hardest parts of the hideout first). Bast, the warlock, freed them and questioned them—they’re the subject of the “Chapter 2” post on the game. I took them, as NPCs and pressed up the maturity and horror of the situation a little. Their capture wasn’t benign and the scars would last (physical and emotional ones). Bast plans to have the party take them to this Thundertree place as soon as they are done with Phandalin—and I may have some story-rich NPCs to keep in the game: this damaged, but strong young woman and how her experiences might twist her into something more in the future.

All in all, there were a few Inspiration points handed out, lots of XP, and the party finds itself with more money (off of looting that hideout) than ever. There were some squabbles about goods and cash—but, all in all, everyone sits pretty and feels their new level very much. This next session should see a lot of aggressive powers (we’re at level 3, where it gets interesting). The wizard is just looking for a reason to scorching blast something, now; the warlock has his otherworldly tome of secrets whispering in his mind; the fighter has figured out some of the arcane powers a former mentor of his demonstrated years ago; the rogue has mastered the art of killing men with pointy things by surprise; and the dragonborn monk is able to express the natural power of the great elements of the world through focus and control of their essence.

Shit, as they say, is about to get real as they hunt for this Cragmaw Castle to find the missing dwarf, maybe that evil wizard, and uncover the secret of the Forge of Spells.

by Ronnie

In my travels across this land to help guide souls down the right path, I have begun to fully understand just how difficult this is going to be. This will not be an easy battle for them either. Either they will see my side of this war and join a better way of life or they will regret their decision to stand against me. If they decide to do things the hard way, we shall do them the hard way. It just means I get to have a little more fun.

It sadden me to find out that this town need so much help, but excited me a little also that I will be able to do so much good in the name of my family. As we were working our first mission from the town. It was ultimately meet with disaster. We overwhelmed them with shear force and was able to take a prisoner. This was then I was able to see the true self of one of my comrades. I always knew he had a different way of thinking but I do not know if I can stand by and watch these things happen to ones who have already given up. Luckily we were able to get some good information out of the prisoner before Malleus did his deed to the man. I do not know if I can forget what he did to this man. I do know now that he might need to be saved himself. I might have to one day help correct this man path decisions, I hope it will not have to come to that. As for for the others I have no issues with, yet.

When we arrived to the manor, it had a very uneasy feeling to it. Full of hate and smelled of death. This place must be brought to into balance. As we cleared out a couple riff-raff, we came across one being that seemed to have completely given up altogether. This monster who had given up his humanity for a little extra power to make people recognize his greatness, will only be remember as the monster that lost his one and only green eye, as well as his life. We continued on, we vanquished some more monsters and saved some hostages. We also learned that this town is going to need to be brought back to order before we move on. There has been one to many reportings of corruption and abuse of status for me to just look the other way. I will help this town regan the balance. There will be order.

by Jim

“There are two Captain Exiles,” is what Harkene told me once, with a smile. "There is Captain Exile the hero. A man who’d sooner die than break a promise, who’d risk life and limb to save a comrade, beloved by his men, admired by his superiors.

“And then there’s the one everybody outside of Bet Kalamar knows.”

I am a good man.

Do I enjoy the killing? Yes. Do I revel in the blood? Oh yes. Do I drink in the screams as if they were a fine, fine wine? Yes, yes, by all the Gods yes.

But you have to understand WHY I enjoy it. I am no mere sadist, no perverse peddler of indiscriminate slaughter. These … I hesitate to call them men … operate outside of the law. They kill, they steal, they burn, they force themselves upon those who cannot fight back. They are the corrupt, the treacherous, the cowardly. They are as beasts, and do we not cut the throats of beasts for a greater purpose?

I enjoy what I do because I enjoy seeing filth get what filth deserves. When some would-be robber finds himself stripped of gold and clothing, and marched through the streets with his shriveled fruits on display, is it not humorous? When a murderer has his blade torn from his hand and thrust into his own vile black heart, is it not righteous?

Others talk of the law, of seeing these creatures brought to justice through the “proper” authorities, but why should we extend the benefits of the law to those who abandon it so freely? Why should the protections of society extend to monsters who seek only to poison it? Why grant rights and respects to those who RESPECT NO RIGHTS?

Let us be honest with ourselves here. The law, as it stands, is ill equipped to deal with the criminal element that infests every town like a rotting, pus-filled sac of putridity. If it were, families would not fear to walk the so-called civilized streets at night. The law, as it stands, is not something a criminal mind can understand. If it did, it would not turn its back on the justice system without so much as a shred of remorse.

It felt good to take the half-orc’s blade and thrust it into the jaw of that sniveling little wretch – ambusher, murderer, and liar that he was. I was nothing but fair. I told him that if he lied, I would hurt him. He lied. I hurt him. Thus, he learned that if we lie, we get in trouble, and he was a good little dog thereafter. You see, quick, decisive, corrective punishment is all these things understand. And I DON’T understand why Natsu objects to this, I don’t understand why Odom looks at me as if I’M the villain. What good is all that power of theirs if they refuse to use it for good?

So I am a good man, you see. A champion of justice. Perhaps the last good man left. You understand that, right? Good.

Now, I’m going to take the gag off and the candles away, okay? Then we’re going to talk again about the Red Cloaks, and why such a young man would fall in with such low scum.

Where our heroes uncover a conspiracy and a dangerous den of thieves...

“We’d been down there for ages—I think mama went crazy a few times. Papa died, the big goblin men did it I think, even though the Tristan boys said they did it. Dekan and Peter Tristan had been my younger brother, Nars’, mates. Sort of. All of them were of an age and in a town as small as Phandalin, you didn’t grow up ignorant of your peers, even if you didn’t spend much time with them, say it true.

“Dekan is… was, I suppose, the elder Tristan—father some kind of miner. Don’t know which, say I don’t and I don’t. Except, most everyone’s father is a miner and those what ain’t supply them. Papa was as well, though Mama had put on airs for years and more because her family taught her some herbs and medicine and potions as a young one no bigger than Nars back in Thundertree years and years ago.

“Thundertree was ‘dead’, Mama always said. I don’t know what that means except nobody my whole life in Phandalin ever went there and that was fine by me. I was trying to kiss the Tristan boys when they got an age on them and the Elkana boy… and all that seems longer ago, years. Even if Harvest dance was only a week back. Maybe this is what Thundertree feels like. Maybe this is what ‘dead’ meant. Maybe it just means old.

“Dekan and Peter were the first of the gang we all saw, true as true. Saw them with their red cloaks and Nars thought it the greatest adventure, and Papa scowled. He’d known them most their lives, same as me and all. The ‘Cloaks had sent them to collect some of Papa’s things. I don’t know what. He was hush as a quiet thing about that, but I could see the argument in the night air outside our stoop. It was a queer thing. Dekan was the same boy I remember muddy to the gills, catching frogs and teasing Nars. But, he wasn’t. He was not much younger than me, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He wore himself a weak beard and carried a man’s sword and walked like that red cloak was the great armor of the Hobgoblin King hisself.

“Dekan was mad. Papa was mad. I couldn’t hear them above like I was, except to hear them angry. Peter came around the side, quick as you like—and when he dropped the hood over Papa’s head, it was like watching someone else’s life happen. Like hearing a story time from Trobon over at the Inn some evenings… hearing a story about someone else’s life and it ain’t real, but it’s present.

“By the time I pulled my senses together and screamed, by the time I ran down the stairs, and by the time Mama and I ran out into the street—they were gone. Every of them. The only people in the night were a red cloaked man, older than Papa I think, just watching me… staring. Me and Mama. And something small and dark. I couldn’t see it. But it walked like a man, it wasn’t no animal.

“They came for us that night. The beatings started. The hoods. And when we woke, awake in those cells in the days after—how many I won’t know and couldn’t say… wait… what is today, sir?

“As long ago as that?

“Gods.

“… right, as you say, one of those days the rapes started. And Mama went away in that cell and I think however she was wounded in the heart when Papa was taken, she died then on the stone floor praying Nars wouldn’t wake over in them other cages. The rough man said she’d best let him and be quiet—or he’s see. And that’s when Mama stopped being. And I don’t know if she’ll be back. She’s sleeping, now, sir. I don’t know if she’ll ever really ‘wake’, though.

“It was a few of them. The next day they beat Nars—only a thirteen year old boy at that, and unarmed and starving and they put a stick in his hand and the large hairy goblin thing near broke his leg with that maul or mace thing of his. Everyone laughed. That old sage that told them all what to do even laughed, it was the only time I saw him ever, sir, it’s a true thing I say.

“Old. Bald. Tattoos. No, sir, on his head. I don’t know… like a bird or a kind of swoopy shape. I couldn’t know what I means, sir. But he was there. And then he wasn’t.

“The red cloaks came often. They told us Dekan and Peter did for Papa. They told us they did things to his body. That he should have given them what they wanted, as the others. That all this was Papa’s fault. Mama was incoherent, never lie. Gone. Nars crying. They came for me, and all the gods forgive me, I didn’t fight them. If there was a way out of it all, sir, it would only come to me for it—that’s what I thought. Mama fought and had been hurt bad, inside and out. I needed to be strong for my brother and her. I went away, and they couldn’t break me that way. "

“The townmaster is scared of them cloaks. And the shops. Barthen. The miners. Everyone. And nobody says nothing when they take and take. They paid for Cobb, sir. Everyone knows it. I don’t care if I might die now for saying, I’ve nothing left to lose. Maybe Nars and Mama and I would be better off with Papa, living in Thundertree or some such, spirits and ghosts that can’t be touched by evil men in scarlet clothes.

“Dekan was the last one, this morning. Peter watched and was to have at me next. That’s how my eye is poorly and hurts, he hit me hard when I begged him to let us go. For the kiss I stole when we were children. For the frogs with Nars. He scowled and hit me and I don’t remember much of what else he done when the fight was out of me except he was quick about it and I think ashamed. They was taunting me and Nars when you came in. Telling us they was gonna sell us for slaves and send us off to Pel Brolenon to be used and used.

“And you all killed them. So quick. And brave. It was a shock of miracles and lights and creatures. I nearly thought you’d been a great dark skitter of night bats for a moment, but it must have been my mind playing tricks. I thought you were a great demon of the deep sent to judge them their sins and follies and evils. But, you’ve been kind to us and this inn may yet save what little of Mama they left. I think Nars is sleeping in your own bed. I thank you that, too.

“I’m glad you killed them, sir. I mourn a little, maybe grieve some for them boys I knew. That it all turned this way. But I look at Mama, and what Nars and me lost so recently… and I’m glad you killed them all. I don’t know why I ain’t crying, though. For Mama or Papa. Or for me. Or even bad as I feel for the Tristan boys and what path led them to this… I don’t feel anything.

“Why can’t I feel anything, sir?

“Is this… all there is now?

“I feel as though the wind might blow me away—that there is only dust now. In me, about me. The gods didn’t save us. You and your strange people did.

“If it’s alright, I’d like to sleep now, sir—that’s all I know. About any of it. If I remember more, can I tell you tomorrow. I think I should nap with Mama a while.”

by Jim

I died there, at the hands of skulking cowards. No, not at their hands. Their damnable arrows, fired from the shadows when my back was turned, they sent me face first into the mud. I know I died, and I felt nothing but regret and shame. Regret at reaching my end before I could complete my grand vision. Shame at dying so pathetically, like a beggar on the street would die, not as a proud soldier of the Sons of Scorn. I died weak. Unaccomplished. And as I watched the elf pass me by in my final seconds, I realized something far worse … I died forgotten.

But it was not to be.

I’m unable to fully piece together what happened, but it would appear not everybody had simply ignored my wounds. I understand not what dark bargains that creature has struck, but whatever power this Bast possesses, it was enough to pull me back from oblivion and into the living world once more. Even more curiously, I awoke stronger, smarter, somehow … superior … than before. I cannot yet comprehend this situation, and do not know for what purpose I live, so will instead tackle the scenario with simplicity – whatever happened, Bast saved my life, and as such it is now his until such a time as the debt may be repaid. I have little left in this world, but I do still possess the honor of Captain Malleus Exile, and not even death itself will rob me of it.

So it is that I find myself now anchored to this curious group of fellows. A half-orc thief, with questionable methods and even more questionable priorities. Natsu, the dragon descendant with whom I have had many fascinating discussions. Bast, the Tiefling, my savior, a strange thing with secrets I would possess … but am pledged to for now. And … her.

Her.

Just as I owe Bast a debt, I owe this Astrid too. I have always been a believer in paying for the things we take, in reaping the things we sow. I won’t forget where the scales lie.

Even so, it would appear she is a source of great knowledge, as Harkene the mage was back in my military years. I learned so much from that old bastard, about how the arcane arts can be put to such wonderfully effective use on the battlefield. And now, with my newfound strength, I may finally be on the path to obtaining that power for myself. Perhaps I can even overlook the elf’s debt if she proves useful in this endeavor. Perhaps.

For now, we find ourselves rested and prepared for several tasks at hand. Most appetizingly, there is word of immoral, unethical, and unjust men that must be treated with in this very town. How awful for everyone that criminals are allowed to run rampant in the streets. How cruel is this world that the common folk must find themselves under the heels of brutes and savages. How sad that bad people do bad things, and the good suffer in their name.

How delightful that such villains so oft find themselves outside the jurisdiction of good men … and well within the confines of mine own.

Where our heroes remember their youth and take a job.

Every month or so in the Duke’s Own tavern (a word play by the owner, a miserable bastard who thought it a clever way to earn business from regiments moving northward from Bet Kalamar), several quiet figures would get together to rehash old times and enjoy a drink (some more than others).

Bast kept rooms there, most nights were spent gambling and chatting up the officers (foreign and local) and tradesmen that drank in the relatively pricey establishment. On occasion, he’d leave for a short trip south or a longer trip up into the mountains, but for the last few years, it’s been rooms at the Duke’s Own—the only inn in town that promised feather beds in the nicer compartments and roasted poultry rather than a pot of goo over the fire.

As always, he was the first. Odom would wander in, always looking over his shoulder—it’d take a few drinks (and did he love the drink, these days) before he’d let the hood down and actually enjoy himself. This time, however, he came with a new friend. “A friend of a friend”, he said—a pretty obvious nod to Odom’s occupation and the sorts of… people… he worked around.

She was stern looking, quiet. Hardly looked like a cutpurse at all. Elvish, probably. Had the ears. And the arrogance. She sat down, she drank quietly. She looked like for all the world that she could be less interested in the music or the laughter. Odom said her name was Astrid. Odom said a lot of things. Chit chat was forced. She wasn’t a real stellar conversationalist and Bast found himself enjoying Odom’s company the most, a few drinks (many for the half-orc, though) and it was talks of the jungle and reminiscing about service in the Barony.

They expected Natsu any time. He’d been walking the trails between Kalamar, Dodera, Tokis, and Pekal for years now. Always the same path. Always the same stops. Always the same mission and message: peace, order, loyalty. There were many towns and villages (even soldiers) that had appreciated the monk’s message, and he’d come a long way from his humble beginnings. Odom remembered their days, sleeping in barns and eating garbage (well, nearly garbage) just to survive on the trail—Bast couldn’t relate, money seemed to find him easily enough back then as well. Now, though, the dragonborn still unnerved the humans… but the teaching of his and his kind had made an impact in this part of the world. It was more often than not that Natsu slept in beds, provided by those sympathetic to his cause and the gods that governed the mountain monastery he came from.

This time, though, on the 4th day of the month of Declarations—when the old gang got together in Bet Dodera to remember their tiny, petty adventures—for the first time, Natsu walked in with someone else. Not just a “someone”, but a human… and one that seemed very much like an officer or soldier with the way he carried himself. In animated conversation the two strolled into the Duke’s Own and joined the rest.

The last time Odom and Bast and Natsu had “old time” with a human was back in the damn old times, themselves.

Not that humans weren’t everywhere. They were. And Kalamar was not, by any stretch, Brandobia—what tales they’d heard—but… still. Odom was used to the looks. Bast rarely even acknowledged the ones he got. Even Astrid was getting glances from the other patrons (all human), and not all of them lude. One could wait an entire day and not hear Natsu say anything in that gravely voice of his, and here he was almost joking with the soldier.

He called himself Malleus. Just the kind of pretentious Kalamaran high borns named their children.

He would be why they wore chains. He would save them. He would also condemn them. It was… or, I suppose “will be” complicated. But, that’s a story for later.

Malleus proved a charming, adroite, polite former officer of the Emperor’s Own. Charming, although a bit too regimented and orderly in his manner (constantly correcting the poor serving woman on how Kalamaran table etiquette demanded this or that of her in a formal setting). Natsu and him spent half the evening engrossed in conversations about the proper role of authority in different hypothetical situations while Odom and Bast told Astrid about their adventures.

She listened… closely. When Odom would pull a coin for another clay of ale, her eyes followed it from his pocket to the hand that whisked it away. Bast’s purse, worn on his belt without care. Malleus had a silver… something… tucked into a pocket of his cloak. Natsu had a box, something metal, looked like an heirloom—it was in a bag that slumped open against the table when he leaned in. The table next to them was playing dice and there was enough money out in the open to feed her for two months…

…stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Old habits. Old habits. She had to stop all of that. Petty. Childish. Nonsense. She was a woman grown, in her sixties and finally able to take on the world—and that life was behind her. How many people (ANY of them) in this city could do what she could? Maybe what? Ten? And if the Duke’s army was out whalloping the crap out of dwarves or something—and they were gone? How many then? Maybe five? Two?

It had taken a tiny fortune. Favors. Time spent (unpleasant time, as well) lavishing praise and smiles at the right nobility and the right guild masters to learn as much as she had. Arcane power was hers. Her book was new, hide covering fine parchment fresh from that lady on the south-side—whatever her name was… Astrid remembered her father better than her, but they had a fair trade in bottles and vials and ink and paper.

Her book. HER book. Not her patron’s—a former Duke of Dodera from nearly forty years ago. Hers. And she could shake the world to its roots. And she would break the backs of the gods themselves. She would be loved. And feared. And sated on power. And—

—what?

Bast was open-mouthed laughing and nearly choking on his own humor as everyone at the table stared. She’d been scowling and making hand motions low on the table of one of her spells. And the warlock found it intensely, disgustingly funny.

Such was their night. The drinks kept pouring, the coin kept appearing, and they all got well and truly drunk together. The other patrons of the Duke’s own avoided the table in the corner—and felt a little jealousy as well, most like.

So, when the dwarf came in—to the arresting silence of the tavern (fucking lying, no-good, dwarf bastards)—and asked for hands to guard and escort a wagon South… for a moment (one, auspicious moment) there were only two sounds in the entire inn. One, a dwarf offering more and more money to get mining provisions to a town South of the capitol in the next few days; and two, a table of fellow non-humans (mostly) sharing some inside joke, drunk and reclining on their benches, interested in refilling their purses after the cost of the night.

The road itself was perilous, of course.

Goblins, in truth.

Ambushes and violence and attempted banditry and Natsu insisting (to deaf ears all around) afterward that they should just go to Phande-whatever-the-place-was with the provisions because THAT was the job.

Odom, Bast, and Astrid were already ankle deep in mud and well on their way through the woods while the dragonborn and the soldier rolled their eyes in frustration. A hike through the woods hunting bad guys—it was as though nobody had learned the lessons of the Priest. But, the two followed—Natsu out of loyalty, Malleus out of the vice of a competative spirit. And hours later, the gang would arrive at the cave that would teach them the most important lesson of their whole lives:

This is real.

This is impossibly real. Not the stories. Not the songs. Not the bullshit bards sing when a room full of farmers are drunk in their watered down beer.

The world is larger and more dangerous than they’d ever imagined.

It took two days. Broken bones and punctured lungs and a crushed eye socket. Blood spilled. Screams. But in the end, they’d found a man taken captive—treated poorly, as well—by the goblins. He was an associate of the dwarf that hired them. He seemed forthright, if a little racist (despite insisting on speaking only to Malleus as “one military man to another”, it seemed it was more because he was a “man” and not a “thing”). They recovered some trade goods from a merchant’s guild that seemed to have been (quite hugely) robbed at some point. And, with some haste, they left the cave behind. The small dead bodies piled high, a large hairy head left to rot on a spike outside of it.

To Phandalin, then.

And, gods be good, enough money to go home and buy enough drinks at the Duke’s Own to forget what they had to do.

by Kathie

I lost my parents when I was very young. I’m not sure how old. I can’t even remember what they looked like exactly. I do remember being loved and having a warm home. I remember feeling safe. However, those memories are few. I grew up in squalor. Until the age of 12, I lived on the streets. I never knew where my next meal was coming from. I had to steal to survive. That’s how I met Hobe.

Hobe was the Duke—the Grand Duke Hobe Lokandana. Years before, he’d started a tradition, to be close to his people, of going out alone every few years to see and feel the realities of Bet Dodera. One night a vendor caught me stealing bread. Hobe offered to pay for it if the vendor would let me go. At first, I thought he would be like the other men. Offering to buy me stuff if I promised to return the favor in other ways. The perverts. However, it didn’t take me long to realize that he was different, but I didn’t stick around to figure out why. I thanked him and went on my way. Over coming years, I would run into him several more times. Each time we would talk more and more. Granted I never fully trusted him, but I trusted him enough that when he offered me a place to stay, I took him up on it. Over the years he became a father figure to me, and me a daughter to him. He had lost his wife and daughter many years ago. I didn’t ask how. Frankly, I didn’t care. He was taking care of me, and I filled a void in his life. I was okay with that.

With Hobe’s patronage, I studied many things, but I excelled at spell craft. And even though I didn’t go without, I still found myself stealing every once in a while. I loved the thrill and the power of taking things that didn’t belong to me. It became an addiction.

I was 20 when Hobe died. Over the next 40 years, I used the money he bequeathed me to learn more about spellcraft. I finally learned enough that I was able to start a spell book, but I want more. I want an entire arcane library. I want power. Power means never stealing your bread again.

by Roger

It was about fifteen years ago that I lost my father. It was no illness that took him from me, not a wound, not the town guard. Just vanished, leaving a note that said “I can’t tell you what I have done in the past there are some things that no man should do. You will not see me again, this is for the best I assure you.” As I finished the note all I could think is how could a man to do that to his own son? That evening a strange fellow in a black cloak, dark as the night knocked on the door asking to see my father, intimidating figure he was with the hood up and me being twelve. I told the man the truth that father had left late in the night to get prepared for the mornings work and when I awoke he was gone. The man stood there silent cold. I remember the words the spoke next, it felt like they burned into my soul itself. “The sins of the father are passed to the son.” You will find him or you will forever carry his burden. I will come for you some day, taking you now would spare you too much, you have too many hardships still to endure in this forsaken land. Find your father and I’ll take him instead, do not ever think that I cannot find you. I could just do it myself, like I have just done albeit a little late it seems but that would ruin the only reason I am letting you live. I have spent too much time on this task to just let it go. With that last statement the man reached out and touched my head and the world turned black.

I was running down a dimly lit hallway that seemed to carry on forever it was chasing me. I had to run faster it was gaining. How did I get here? What have I done to deserve to be chased by this monster? I have to find my father it’s the only way the man would spare me. I think the monster turned around, finally I can catch my breath. What are these symbols? As I took a closer look there was a quick noise, as I turned the four-legged beast leaped on top of me as it bit into my neck I shrieked awake. Weeping at the fear that I had just experienced was the only thing that I could do. I had to find my father he could fix this. I gathered what was valuable that I could sell and headed into town. I could tell the guard but they would just toss me into the bin, no I had to do this on my own for myself.

The town was huge. I remember come here with mother once before she passed, we went to pickup fresh bread. Those were the great times before she had gotten sick. Where do I start? I could talk to the adults but that would just get me sent to a church for penance. As I walked down the street I noticed every couple of alleys there were kids about my age. I could talk to them, would be a lot easier also. As I approached this one kid his hands started moving in weird gesture. “Are you trying to curse me?” I said. “No” he replied. As I was asking the street boy some questions I noticed that the other kids down the other alleys started to surround us. “I mean you no harm, you don’t need to do this.” “You’re alone halfie and information isn’t free.” With that the group attacked.

Covering up was all I could do I was on the ground absorbing kicks in a matter of seconds. After what seemed like hours they stopped hitting me. While I laid there busted up and bruised they were looking through my backpack. Not sure what they were gonna find in there other than some silver extra clothes and a carving my mother gave me.

“Is this all you have? Who are you here with?” he asked.

With rasped voice “I’m looking for my father he left me last night for dead” I replied.

“Who’s father hasn’t left us for dead? How about you Thom your father leave you for dead?”

“Yea Willum, he left me in the gutter.”

“Get up your coming with us now, the name is Willum. Lets get some food into you and see what your good at you could be useful for us and in turn we will help you when we can.”

by Ronnie

I have lived in the monastery all my life. I have no memories of my parents or where I come from. I have no desire to find out why I was left at the monastery. My only motivation now is how I can repay the kindness the monks have shown me. The way the monks lived together in this village was like each and every one of them were family. At an early age I was able to perform minor duties around the monastery do to my unique body. I was put on a pedestal by some of the elder monks because of this. The rest treated me like I was no different from anyone else. They never showed fear, hatred or looked down upon me. It’s like I was always apart of this family even before I came about. I was told that I could never leave the monastery because of what others in the world might think of me. That not everyone in the world has the same view as the monastery. Most would conceive me as a monster. Few would see me as a friend, but with the right amount of determination most everyone’s opinion of me could be change. Some you could change their view of me with just a little bit of kindness. Others will just hate me just because I’m different.

I was then told that the world is composed of good and evil. Even I had evil inside me and it is my decision to figure out which direction I was to take. I was never told that I had to follow their ways, but how could I deny their way of living. Everyone in the monastery was happy, greeted each other with excitement every day and even to ones outside the monastery the monks always showed kindness too. There were a few exceptions but only when hostile intent was shown. Even then the monks would never turn down an opportunity to save a soul that was misguided off the road of enlightenment. Souls further off the road of enlightenment will take some force to help them see a better way but not all will I be so lucky on. These souls are too far gone to save, but I must still try. They followed a certain way of engaging enemies in combat. Most refused to kill and would offer to show their foes a better way, of course after the enemies body recovered. Only a few were tasked with taking anothers life but would always give proper burials. I idolized this way of living. By completely overcoming their enemies and showing some kindness when the enemy is at one of his lowest points in life, some could be saved but not all.

With some knowledge on the rough road ahead of me. I knew I had to start my training soon to become strong enough to aid my family. They taught me their ways in martial arts using weapons but I prefer hand-to-hand combat. To me this felt natural. I would train from sunrise till early hours the next day and do it all over again. Once I became proficient in my skills. The elders allowed me to journey to other cities but only if I wanted too. They were not about to force me into a world that would not except me. I was excited and highly anticipated the day that I could go out and see others. My first couple missions were to go from village to village and allow the townspeople to get use to my appearance but was always accompanied by fellow monks. This was due to with the other monks with me my journey would be more enjoyable and the townsfolk would accept me me faster. As the months went on I grew closer to my brothers and sisters in my group. One in particular would always play pranks on me but every now and again I would retaliate with my own prank even tho they were not that good. We all would laugh and have a good time. Over time we began to break apart because the villagers would recognize me as member of the monastery and always loved see me coming their way. The children would come and try to get me to play games with them, which I enjoyed tremendously, but only for a bit. I could not be side tracked off my mission for which I came to this place. Afterwards tho before leaving the villages I would always leave resume playing the games with the children and helping others with small deeds around their homes. It was always painful to leave such happiness behind but there are other tasks I must take care of.

On my travels I always came back to Bet Dodera in Dodera. I would always go to the local inn and restock provisions before heading back out. I would always see a half orc rogish fellow in the corner drinking by himself or on a rare occasion with some questionable looking people. On this day tho he was by himself. I decided that I would try to form a bond with this guy. I grabbed a drink and sat next to the half orc. He was stand offish at first but realized that I was extremely stubborn when I was set in my ways. Ever since that day our friendship grew. We became the best of comrades but for some reason would always avoid the lawmen. After months of grouping with each other the lawmen tried to slander my monastery and ruin the reputation of my home. I do not take kindly to this kind of behavior and no one shall sully my family name and honor, but before I lose my anger Odom would always step in and take care of the issue before I could do anything about it. I believe it’s his way of helping me protect my families honor. I would pick up jobs from the city hall to bring in wrong does. Helping the guard with jobs they would not do themselves. I was able to grow a small friendship and understanding with the local guards. It wasn’t long before rumors of such was forgotten or even spoken of dishonoring my family. Later I would find out that Odom is apart of a guild that not many good people come from. He seemed to be the exception tho. Even tho I do not agree with his methods, I do like that he is doing what he can to help fight for the side of good.

One night as Odom and I were sitting in the Inn a devilish being walked in and started ordering all kinds of extravagant food. Whatever he didn’t finish he would just throw away. This was absurde, this unknown being just throwing away perfectly good food just because it didn’t taste the way he wanted it. While we were sitting here eating what looked to be month old bread and something that resembled meat………. Then he would whip out a flute which he had no idea how to play, and play very…….very loudly. Everyone had enough. I invited him over. We were lucky enough tho to be able to eat and drink whatever he didn’t like. Once we got to know him, he’s not so bad. Bast became a good addition to the crew.

On our way out that night we happened to bump into a cleric of a church that he could not clearly tell us which god he worshipped. I think it was all of them.?.? He looked lonely so we invited him to join us the next night. Why not, we already had the weirdest looking group ever. Lets throw some human up in here. Tristun was a good man.

by Jeff

There are things that we know, and there are things that we do not know. We can search until our minds lose their grip on this reality and still not come to any conclusions. You see we base our thoughts, our realities, on things that are known. Things that have shape and form and substance. We believe in Gods, because they grant us power. Put simply, they touch our world. What happens when one tries to find answers in things that do not belong to this world. Many go down this path, and many find themselves turned away. Simple minds cannot grasp the things a Warlock must see. It takes a special one to be able to absorb what our patrons will show us. These things may be terrible, or they may be beautiful. It is not up to us. Simple minds will rot. Simple minds will be devoured.

My mind is not so simple. My mind is an ocean. When something falls into an ocean, the ocean does not resist. It does not fight this thing, or try and push the thing out. The thing passes into the ocean and becomes a part of it. Every concept. Every feeling, and emotion. Every idea, and thought is allowed. They are all valuable in some way. Do you see? This is the best way Bast knows how to relate to you where his power comes from. It is not an easy thing to try and put into words, but again Bast will try.

Time does not mean what you think it does. Bast will start here. When we say the world is this many years old, what does that mean? To things that have seen the birth of our very universe, what does this year mean? It means nothing. You see there are things out there that do not follow what we consider to be fundamental laws. Things that may manifest themselves to a few of us, and things that never will be seen, or mentioned in any book or scroll. Things that wait, or things that act.

One such thing is Eblis. Eblis has never known anything other than Eblis. Everything is it, and it is everything. One concept we have that you may understand is entropy. The idea that everything will devolve into a state of chaos, or better yet, that given enough time, the energy of any system will fall to zero. This idea may be a good place to start. When I say time has no meaning I truly mean that time has no meaning here. Get this out of your mind if you can. When the birth of all things happened, Eblis was there. When the universe decays and becomes nothing but black, Eblis will be there. It is the chaos of a system. It will be the end, and will also begin. Most mortal minds are only able to comprehend this in very simple ways, and Bast will not blame you if you are one of these. They will see soot from a tallow candle, or feel the disconcerting feeling when around mold and fungus. They will smell bad things when presented with rot, and notice “death” in the air.

These things are not so simple, however. These things are common to every place, every being, and every time. This is Eblis. It reaches out to those that have the capacity to hear it. No one knows why, and, most like, know one will ever know why. It’s power may be used by some. One thing that I do know for certain is that Bast’s path will forever be Eblis. Most like, Eblis likes me. Likes things “Like” me. It grants me some of its power so that I may continue to search. Maybe Eblis has a plan, or maybe it doesn’t. Bast may never find out, but Bast will search for the answers nonetheless. Go now, for the words to tell you more escape me. Use this if you will, or don’t, Bast is hungry, and will sleep.

Where our heroes reflect on a bad trip to a jungle.

Baron Woodlew, peer of the Kadana Circle of the Kingdom of Basir (a fancy, Coastie name for third cousin of the King with nothing but a simple barony and a keep, but possessed of enough clout within the extended family to get invited to royal affairs on any occasion of note) was widely considered to be a just and reasonable constable of his people and territory. And, prudent as anyone can be in these times of war on the borderlands, he made his contribution to his nation and king and empire and emperor in modest, but effective ways.

While any Duke could field an army, Tristan Woodlew (himself not native of Kalamar, but rather of an offshoot of the royal line that took his grandparents off to Pel Brolenon and his parents back to the Empire), was short on troops and money to pay for them even if he had them. What he was rich in, however, was refugees and wanderers from either the skirmishes with the Young Kingdoms to the North or the mountain clans of the West. They came, always, to find passage somewhere else or work to do. Dodera would not have them. Kalamar would only conscript them, Tokis would fight a three day battle all around them, so it was left to Basir to see them off and the poorer landowners to find what use they could of them.

Baron Woodlew’s use was paying (cheaply) for the more capable transients to beat up, run off, apprehend, or kill the ones that broke the laws or threatened his lands. In lieu of a company of good soldiers, he defended his corner of the kingdom with paid mercenaries and adventurers. The crown was pleased. Kalamar was pleased. All profited.

Mostly all.

For a few years, one group of transplants came to be more relied on than most. They had no collective name, most just knew them as Woodlew’s boys. And they were mostly just boys, as well. Not a one of them much older than twenty—Bast, in particular, barely out of puberty. For a few coins, they would fetch this or that, send messages, even beat up a criminal or two. Odom, the thief, was as close to a leader as the group had. Baron Woodlew liked him the most—mostly because the rest were just enormously unsettling in general.

Natsu was an inscrutable thing from the mountains in the West. Dragonborn were not unheard of in the world, but if the Baron’s cleverest associates were to be believed, there were none in the days of the old empire and certainly none before it. Common folk were scared (rightly) of them, and Natsu was the only one he ever met. Quiet. Often silent. Huge. Half-naked, but civilized to a severe degree—that by itself would make for awkward conversation were it not for the occasional joke or foolish moment (at least what it thought was a joke, clearly). It was like watching a rock chuckle to itself because it thought being wet with rain was hilarious.

Bast bore the horns of a demon and the skin of a fiend. In the old days, he would have been hounded out of these lands and likely murdered in the next ones. But, the world was not as it was—and things like him, men born of the seed of outside creatures—were not necessarily evil. To the contrary, compared to truly horrible things like orcs and hobgoblin soldiers and dwarvish terrorists, Bast—despite his red skin and odd manner—was a charming and witty person. He consorted with arcane powers, clearly, but never did any evil magicks that the Baron ever saw or heard. In truth, the children liked him and the smallfolk learned to treat him respectfully. Despite all of that, the tiefling often made social feau-pas and was never particularly interested in taking or giving orders.

One would think the human was better—Tristan of some temple Baron Woodlew had never heard of. A priest that seemed to eschew his own god, and occasionally appear to have forgotten which he’d worshipped at all. He was charming, but a seemingly spoiled boy with the barest manners and the weakest grasp on responsibility.

It fell to the young, serious-minded Half-Orc, Odom, to whip these boys along a better path. It was Odom who scouted ahead, Odom who snuck into camps of criminals, and Odom who did most of the serious talking with the Baron. Hell, it was Odom who proved to be the only one of them to ever actually ask for anything in return for their work (besides spending coin). Baron Woodlew regretted never having helped Odom search for his father. In truth, he’d grown to like the somewhat free-spirited green boy a lot. More than was respectable for a peer.

So, when he’d gotten word that they’d died hunting a creature on a small island off the coast—at the border of the Baron’s lands (a task he’d set them to, himself), he began carrying some regrets. They’d done so much for him, so little asked in return, and what little asked he’d been unable to help with—and now, those he’d come to rely on were dead. And dead for so little—the hunting of a rumor. In the grand scheme of things, with wars going on in the North and pirates on the seas and very real famines rocking his lordly neighbors… well, Baron Tristan Woodlew found some time for self-reflection and liked what he saw very little. Middle-aged. Portly. Hardly rich. Hardly famous. The grandson of a near-traitor, the son of exiles, the low-lord of a few fields and the exploiter of children.

When Odom’s gang came back—reports had been wrong, only the priest had died (falling off of a cliff on an island without a name off the coast of a village without a name in the lands of a Baron without an important name)—the Baron released them from his service. They protested. He held. They were hurt. But they were boys. They saw only their adventure, he saw their future. To die falling from a cliff, drowning in a lake, hungry, ill, diseased, mauled by a bear… and all for no great reason.

Baron Woodlew lost his taste for his adventures-by-proxy with Odom’s gang and the remaining members—three demihumans in the Empire—went their separate ways.

Odom went back home to Bet Dodera. Bast followed, for no other reason than he seemed to have no home himself. Natsu went back to the mountains. The priest was buried in Woodlew’s lands. A marker placed. The Baron would go onto to take walks by it frequently, as a reminder to the sins of wasted youth.